


Remind Me, Lost Star

by DVWorks



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action/Adventure, Amnesia, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Fix-it fic, Gen, GiveJusticeToLotor, Hurt/Comfort, Lotor begins using alchemy, Lotor redemption arc, LotorDeservesBetter, Lotura - Freeform, Masked! Lotor, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Voltron Coalition, allura will not die in this one, good gravy on a thanksgiving turkey or so help me christmas, goodness gracious, i want to explore about the colony and all the little plot points connecting to it, i'll write out my sorrows here if you guys need me, kolivan my man, lotor begins to remember of who he is, lotor escapes the rift, lotor has amnesia, narti returns, one oc character to guide lotor, this begins at the beginning of season 7, voltron fix-it, voltron season 7, voltron season 8, voltron season eight and seven would not had happened if lotor was alive, watching lilo and stitch to with a tub of ice cream and sobbing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-09-21 12:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DVWorks/pseuds/DVWorks
Summary: This is a Lotor Redemption Arc.Beginning at season 7, Lotor escapes the rift just before the time dilation explosion, where he crash-lands on a remote planet and wakes up with amnesia. With a guide to help him, along with familiar faces along the way to reunite with former friends and recollecting his past in his journey.





	1. Stranded

Drifting alone in the fabric of space and time, a large fractured mecha floats within the sea of white. The pilot, weakly catching the gaze of another mecha in contrast to his own, escapes the high-energy space like a flicker of light. He stretches out his hand as if saying ‘Don’t you dare go and leave me…’ and rage flows through his veins, pulling the thruster controls and entering the code quickly to escape the rift to catch up Voltron.

He pierced the veil.

Blue electricity fires throughout the cockpit. The pilot raises his head up, with his eyes now glowing in golden sclera, completely replacing his indigo pupils. His mad rage prompts his fingers to type in coordinates frantically to find his rival robot. His carelessness has no class. His frustration at the controls malfunctioning causes him to land his fist in a thunderous slam on the dashboard, sending him in a remote part of an unknown quadrant. His vision becomes foggy as his body gives in to weakness, losing his grip on the controls, and causing his mecha to fall straight down as a result. The Sincline skyrocketed through the atmosphere of a desolate and deeply dense jungle-like planet. Shooting through the depths of the forest, the mecha began catching vines across its the armor and kept sinking into the sheer length of mud and bog of the swamp. Over time, the vines of the forest start to grow over the Sincline in over many vargas, attracted to the residual quintessence still lingering across its metallic surface. A small traveler catches the sight of the violent meteorite in the sky and runs over the puddles of the rainforest to find it. Running with satchels of food strapped on her back and a tribal mask over her face, the nymph-like girl halts before the head of the Sincline succumbing to the swamp. She stares at the eye window, where the mecha ejects a pod out its chest to the other side of the forest several meters nearby. Soon, she pulls out an arrow and taps on the pod resting on the side of a large banyan-like tree. The pod opens up to reveal the ragged armor-clad pilot, sleeping in peace before and now lifting his eyes forward to the one who found him.

“Who… are you?” His voice ragged yet his eyes glowed. The little scavenger was taken aback by his appearance, as long red corrupted marks dripped down from his cheeks through his lips. His long unruly white hair kept her curiosity, as it glimmered with quintessence across his lavender skin. His torso was exposed with red marks across his body like tribal tattoos, causing the girl to query.

“Which village have you arrived from?” She scowled at him. The pilot looked at her appearance, for she wore a double-layered poncho, baggy shorts, cloth wrapped around her arms and legs, and little brown boots. A maroon wooden mask covered her face to his curiosity. He noticed she carried a satchel of arrows and a bow across her back. “I never heard of a village controlling a large beast such as this from the heavens. Are you here to destroy the Galra?”

“Galra…what is that?” He spoke weakly.

She was stunned by his response. “You have a lion’s mane. Your teeth are sharp. You must be the one known as Voltron.”

He knitted his eyebrows together. “Child, what is Voltron…?”

“How could you not know of Voltron? Second, I am not a child for I have scavenged across these parts of the forest for quintants after the Galra destroyed my village.” She pulled off her mask, revealing lovely emerald skin and sharp red eyes, with yellow marks across her cheeks, forehead, and chin.

A foggy memory surfaced his mind. “A…Dalterian…”

“Descendants of the great Dalterian race led by Trigel thousands of years ago…” She grimaced. “Would have kept their peaceful life had it not been for the Galra.”

He slowly rose up from his cockpit with his claws grabbing the sides and rising up to reveal damaged vambraces across the lower parts of his arms, falling down headfirst from the pod in an instance. He grunted in pain and the girl looked at him with worry. She pushed him over to his side as he laid on the forest ground, as he slowly gasped and coughed weakly. While feeling unsure of who he was, she decided to pull out a wooden bowl from her bag and run to a nearby pool of water. She came back to him and offered him the bowl.

“Take it.” She commanded him.

He looked at her and the bowl, and right back at her. “How do I know you’re not trying to poison me?”

“Just because I’m rude, it doesn’t mean I have the decency to act like a living being, you dum-dum. Drink the damn water.”

“…Alright then.” He lifted up his hand, lowering his claws as soon as he held the bowl and slowly drank the water. It tasted terrible for swamp water. He winced and looked up to see her proud little grin, giving her a small grin as well. “You really ought to find better water, child.”

“I’m not a child and this is the best water I can find! Everything else is poisoned.”

“So I drank poisoned water then?”

“Partially. I don’t know.”

“I guess I’ll partially die.” He weakly chuckled. “What is your name?”

She stopped and looked down sadly. “…Kari.”

“Kari, where are your parents?”

“My dad is dead. My mom betrayed me and died too.” There was a tear in her eye. “I hate her... I hate her for leaving dad and leaving the village and me.”

A faint memory slowly rose to his mind of a woman clad in violet silk hood and glowing yellow eyes, giving him a small shiver.

“Are you cold? You literally don’t have a shirt.” Kari looked at him confused.

“No…I just…I understand how you feel.” Who is that person with the hood…? He wondered.

Kari went through her bag and pulled out a large cloth. “Sit up.” She told him and he obeyed, letting her wrap the cloth around him, tying up the knots to give him a poofy long-sleeve shirt. “You’ll have a fever if you walk around the fever like that.”

He looked at her with a smile of gratitude. “Thank you, Kari.”

“No problem…”She looked down. Then she ran to a tree and ripped out a sturdy vine-like rod and gave it to him. “If you have trouble balancing yourself, this might help...err, your name?”

He blanked out. “Sorry, but I don’t know that.”

“If you don’t know, then you can’t be a person. Better a ghost than no one, though. Sometimes I feel like a ghost.” She gripped on the vine rod. “I shall give you a name for now. Because you are a dum-dum, I’ll call you what my village calls someone ‘a forgettable fool’.”

“And I am?” He looked rather nervous.

“Kal.” She smirked rather proudly, giving him the staff. “I dub thee, Kal.” She gave him a curtsy.

He held the rod and pulled himself up, almost losing balance but Kari tried to hold him up despite her size. Little by little, she guided him through the forest ahead of him as they trekked. Quintant by quintant, they would rest on some days hiding below the large tree roots from the pouring of rain throughout the forest and leave when it cleared up to keep on moving. Kari would create a small fire and pull out galactic frogs on sticks and roast them over the fire, offering to him some food. Kal would refuse, leading Kari to shove the roasted frogs in his face, making her laugh and Lotor look wearily at the girl. But felt warmth when she laughed, crunching the fried space amphibians with his fangs.

“Why are your teeth so sharp like a Galra?” She asked him, wiping away the tears of her laughter. Leaning in, she opened his lips to see his gums. “Like look at these.” She awed.

He put his hand on her shoulder to gently push her away from examining more of his teeth, rubbing his cheeks. “If you want to consult the structure of my canines, then perhaps you should find a better profession.”

“La-dee-da. You keep on speaking such big proper words. Like one time, instead of saying a trap, you explained it as some ‘mechanism that ensnares greater beings of predator or prey’.” She pointed at him with her fried frog stick.

“I suppose that’s true.” He threw the empty stick behind him.

“Your hair is really long, though.” She walked up behind him and felt the tendrils of the soft white hair. “Do you braid it?”

“Braid? I’m not quite sure…”

“Kal, I’m braiding your hair.”

“What.” Suddenly, he almost fell back on the log he was sitting on. The tug of his hair was pulled by Kari, making him nervous. “Wait, wait, wait---!”

“Quiet, Kal. I’m fixing your hair.” Kari was busy separating parts of his hair. “If you leave it open, it’s gonna get damaged—which I’m surprised it hasn’t already. Now don’t move.”

“Alright, then…” He sat up straight, yet still felt nervous.

He waited for quite a while and soon looked up at the stars with the embers of the campfire spiriting away to the cosmic dust above them. In such a deeply dense forest, he felt like they were the only two stranded with a source of light by them. But the stars being so clear, his indigo pupils began to appear to reveal to the true clarity of the galaxies in his vision.

“There! Now, you can look---!” Kari stopped as he turned around to feel the complexity of his braid. She caught the sight of his blue eyes. “…You look different.”

“I guess the braid gives me quite a look.” He chuckled.

“…Yeah.” She smiled nervously.

“I like it.” He smiled. “Thank you.”

She nodded slowly, rather disturbed by the feline slit of his pupils. “Uh-huh…”

“These star patterns in the sky, Kari.” He pointed for her to see. “I believe if we follow that constellation there with the blue star at its tip, we have a set of cardinal directions.” He looked back at her. “I am a bit confused, but where exactly are we going?”

She stood firm. “We’re going to find the source of what is killing the forests of my planet.” She pointed with her little finger to the dead woods. “The trees appeared healthy just a few quintants before, right? But lately, the rest of the forest is dying so quickly, which gave such a hard time for my village as we use healthy wood for our customs. But it looks like their lives of the trees are being sucked out.” She took a stick and drew out a picture in the green mud. “See, this is where we were earlier and this is where I found you too.” She drew a line and triangle as well. “If we keep going in this direction, we can find the mountain.”

“What’s at the mountain?” He looked up at her.

“The Galra base.” She bit her lip. “They’re taking away the life of the forest, ruining villages such as mine so they can occupy and enslave us. I was just lucky that I escaped, but I have to help my people if I just managed to survive.”

“But all you have are arrows.” He pointed out. “You can’t expect that your bow could do much justice based on your description of them.”

“I want to try, though.” She made a fist. “I want to do it for my father after they took his life away.”

He looked down with worry but then turned up his head in determination. “I’ll help you.”

“Thanks, but you’re not carrying a weapon.” Kari pointed at him.

He looked at the vine staff he had. “What if I used that?”

“That’s a start but you don’t have a mask of protection.”

“You mean the one you have behind your head?” He pointed to the red mask she kept.

“My people wore it to symbolize warriors who hunted for peace. This is my dad’s, though.” She tenderly felt it. “Wait!” She jumped up with an epiphany. “I’ll be back and don’t change yourself or do any magic while I’m gone.” She sprinted back into the forest.

He sat there alone with the campfire awkwardly. “Sure…” He pulled up his braid. “Magic…? What is she talking about?”

She returned back after several doboshes, which made him quite worried, with a beet red wooden mask and handed it to him. “Carving it took the most time, but now you have a mask of protection. It’s only half its true size but it's good enough.”

He pulled it over his face, which only covered a bit past his nose, leaving the rest of his face exposed for the red marks to appear. “I…gladly appreciate the gift, Kari.” He chuckled nervously. She walked forward and pulled over a cloak over him and tied the knot with a wooden button at the end. “There. Now you’re a peace hunter, Kal.” She giggled.

They carried on their journey through the parts of the forest and made stops as they went, watching the seasons pass and the quintants growing closer to the day they find the Galran base. He learned how to hunt by Kari, even surprising her on clever tactics of how to capture better prey than space frogs. He even used the staff to fend her and Kari a couple of beasts that tried to attack them (as well as a bigger dinner). Soon, they met themselves the base of the mountain, looking up to the Galran base situated on the side of it like a dark castle.

He felt apprehension crawl up on his back. “I…feel like I know this…”

“Have you been here before?” Kari looked up at him.

“No, but the structure is familiar to me somehow.” He scowled and put the mask over him, along with the cloak. “Prepare yourself.”

She nodded and they begin to scale up the mountain. At one point, a drone spat out from the forest to attack them, causing him to flinch and jump on the sides of the trees to jump high in the air to slam down the staff through the drone. It broke apart, with bits of its transistors and wires spilling out like entrails. Kari looked at him in surprise and he looked back at her sternly.

“Stay by me, Kari. I don’t know how many more of these will be available.”

“Don’t worry about me.” She pulled out her bow and arrow. “I know how to take them down.”

“Good. Let’s keep moving.” He turned around and Kari quickly followed after him. “This staff is made out of a remarkable material to take down metal.” He looked at it curiously.

They reached the Galran facility, where the entrance opened up with soldiers moving back and forth from a sliding door. Soon, the rotation of the soldiers stopped, allowing Kari and him to run quickly to the door. He looked at the keypad and a faint memory bubbled in his mind. Kari almost slammed an arrow at the keypad, where he stopped her quickly. “Wait. Kari, I know you’re impatient but I think I know how to open this.”

She stepped back from him. “How?”

He stepped forward at the pad and entered a series of symbols into it, opening the door quickly.

“Access granted for the Pro-Tem.” The automated voice spoke.

“Pro-Tem? What is that?” She stared at him.

“I…don't know. But whatever it is, I feel pulled to come here.” Lotor stared at the dark hallway lit by violet lights.

“Hold on.” She grabbed the edge of his shirt. “How…do I know you’re not one of them?”

He looked at her with worry and came down at his knee. “Because I can count on you to make the right choice even if we don’t know everything.” He smiled for her.

“Okay…” She nodded and held his hand as they walked into the path of no return.


	2. Name

They kept moving through the corridors of the facility, with Kari ready with her bow and Kal with his staff. Along the path, they kept switching directions to perhaps find the core room responsible for the life being sucked out from the trees on the planet. Kari looked up at Kal nervously, wondering if she was holding the hand of a Galra this whole time, or the fact that she spent a whole deca-phoeb with him since his crash landing with that strange dragon-like mecha. Quickly, soldiers caught the two from the far end of the hallway, running up to them in an attack. The two sprint away from them and soon they accidentally separate from each other in the pursuit. Kari’s arrows couldn’t keep fending off the soldiers and soon enough she ran out of them, running in fear before being stopped by another soldier and getting captured as a result.

“Kari!” He yelled out to try to find her but soon engaged in combat with the soldiers, knocking them down quickly and looking for her desperately. He couldn’t believe he lost her already. He kept moving through the hallway and stumbled across a door with another. Wanting to know if Kari was kept inside, he violently entered the keypad and ran inside quickly. He stopped by the sight of a room full of dead trees and robotic instruments taking samples of the sucked wood and bringing it to a scanner, reading out frequencies a screen for him to look at.

Soon enough, he realized that this is how they had been able to take away the life of the planet. He stretched out his claw, using the tips of it to slide the panels of information. Suddenly, he was reading the information at a rapid rate, quickly taking in information in meres half-ticks of time, catching words such as ‘Komar’, ‘High Priestess’, ‘Galra’, ‘Zarkon’, ‘Fleets’, and finally---

Quintessence.

It was slowly coming back to him but the memories remain just as faint as before. He began to see a child walking up in a throne room with a tall beast of an emperor lowering his eyes down himself with a hooded figure by his side. The sight of the witch who was known as The High Priestess. An evil being who brought shame and pain in his heart, yet he still couldn’t understand who she was. The Emperor known as Zarkon. The man who was his father, not so apparently. A faint memory arose in his mind of taking a spear and stabbing him in the back, preventing him from doing something terrible that would bring the end of the universe. Soon, he caught the name.

Voltron.

The greatest weapon in the entire universe, or even many more. There were figures with foggy silhouettes that piloted parts of the grand beast, lion by lion. They took down Galra bases, defeated his father in battle, and reported missing by the scanner protocols. Haggar was in pursuit of them and the current emperor as well.

By the number of probabilities that team Voltron succeeded against, their presence gave a lingering of raw anger and bitter sadness in his heart. That was what he felt from them. Leaving him to die in the rift… He kept reading through the logs, memorizing any information that could be useful to him. Having the passwords, the number of ships, type of fuel, and etc. in his head, he went to the control panel in the room and looked for surveillance tapes for the chance to find Kari’s location. He wanted to understand who he was and why Voltron had left him in the first place. He knew he was the prince of a tyrant and wondered if this was the reason but questioned himself after remembering he killed his father. But what was more unsettling was the word ‘Quintessence’.

It bothered him. It made him want to shake and collapse. And realized he was, on the ground in a remote Galra facility, was him clasping the sides of his head and suddenly experiencing visions of numerous people in pods. Drained of color in their skin and eyes, people with red marks streaked across their bodies were healthy and become dead like the trees of the forest withering away. Instruments on top of them to resituate them, equipment strapped on to them as they held the controls inside of ships, and returning back with the pods revealing their bodies in need of life. The image of his father Zarkon strapped on to a table with the High Priestess commanding guards to attach pink tubes of quintessence through his body and soon found himself repeating the same process on these people with the energy known as—

“Quintessence! Quintessence! Quintessence!” He started shaking and watching the people who gave their trust in him perish in his arms. He looked up to see a planet exploding with his father and mother behind him as he was traumatized to see the sight of millions taken away from him, causing him to scream and shake, and soon finding himself surrounded by an array of white light and blue electricity as his mind was going insane and him laughing maniacally. “Make it stop! Make IT STOOOP!” He screamed violently in anguish and soon his vision faded to black. His mask fell off his face as he slammed down on the floor. The door opened and soldiers ran into the room, apprehending his passed-out body, with the leader of the Galran facility looking down on the failed emperor.

=======================================================

“Lotor.” Dayak looked at the young prince.

“Yes, Dayak…” The small one looks up at her curiously.

“How many times do I have to tell you that you need to stand up firm?” She whacked him with her stick.

The boy begins to cry and Dayak whacked him again twice. “You need to understand that your father will not stand for weak posture.”

He held back in tears, but a lump of pain grew in his throat. “Ok…” He sniffed and stood up straight.

“You can’t afford weakness in the eyes of the enemy, Lotor.” She put her hand on his shoulder and quickly let go, realizing her mistake.

“Dayak?” He asked her.

“Yes?”

“Who is my mother?” He bit his lip from crying more.

“That…Your father may know.” Dayak turned around and the little prince followed after her.

“Lotor.” Dayak looked at the young prince.

“Yes, Dayak.” He sat in his desk with Kova curling in his lap.

“You need to continue your training.” She looked down and found the cat. “Why do you have the High Priestess’ creature with you?”

“His name is Kova and he is staying with me. I have Haggar’s approval.”

“Very well but the way of your sword needs work.” She pulled out a sword and kept her other arm behind her, watching the boy pick up his sword and quickly running up to her with attacks in all directions, flying through the air in sharp agility and swiftly rebutting all of his attacks instantly.

Lotor felt the thrill of fighting with a sword, dodging attacks from other enemies in a battlefield or sneaking into arenas to find himself first-class entertainment himself. Observing and carefully analyzing his opponents one by one. His studies in astronomy and cultures he met in his travels as a prince was so enjoyable to him.

“You don’t know when to stop, do you?” A silhouette of himself spoke to him in the distance.

Kova beside him meowed out for his attention to pick him up, so Lotor did and soon the shadow of himself disappeared. He looked out in the white atmosphere, alone and decorated in the colors of his beloved companion by his side and soon others matching the color scheme as well. But he turned around to look at his companions and they all disappeared. He turned around and found a hooded figure with Kova jumping from his arms and towards her.

The witch…

Soon, many people with cheek marks go past by him in multitudes toward her in excitement and joy. They wanted to see her for thousands of years and she raised their people to reach their potential and success in the technological age she brought up. The beloved alchemist known as Honerva, his moth----

======================================================================

Lotor woke up in a cell with his arms behind his back in shackles. He remembered this feeling but not the exact circumstances. How could he have forgotten…? The dreaded feeling of being the emperor held within a remote outpost of the Galran Empire began to haunt him. But the thought of Kari reminded me. He knew he can’t be kept here for long. He needed to find a way to get out.

He can’t keep on standing still any longer.

The door slid open and a pair of soldiers and their captain walked into his cell. The captain led the entire Galran facility as well as the entire planet, stunned to see the emperor in his hands in his own post. “Well, what brings you here, your majesty?”

“Frankly, I like to answer the same.” He glared.

“It’s not necessarily every day we get such as high-seat presence from the ruler of the Galran Empire.” He got walked around Lotor in a pace as the soldier aimed their guns at his head. “Care to explain why you’re playing with a little girl whose village we destroyed in the forest out there?”

“Where is she? ” He clenched his teeth.

“We’re planning on interrogating her by using our methods.” He smiled deviously.

The color drained from his face and jumped up towards the captain, getting stunned by a violent electric shock immediately. He screamed out in pain and fell down to the ground, looking up irritated to the laughter of the captain.

“You honestly believe that if we followed your ideas of peace and unity that the Galran can just jolly along with it?” He laughed down at him. “You’re no emperor of mine, sir. A mere half-blood, at that.” He turned his back on him. “Call the High Priestess Haggar. We found the bastard she’s been looking for.”

No…He can’t back down. He can’t be separated again. He can’t lose anything anymore...The feeling of dread weighed on him like the millions of people he let down. How could a king be a king without his people? Lotor knew better than that. He knew that peace is carved out by the harshest of paths and enduring it was only the journey to stop a ten-thousand-year-old war. He was the child raised in the void, therefore he must be the man to raise a future out from it as well.

A loud explosion was heard behind the door. The captain and the soldiers turned around, giving Lotor the advantage to attack quickly. He pulled his arms over his back with a crack, scaring the soldiers by the sight of the double-jointed ability of the emperor, and quickly getting kicked in the faces each by the emperor too. The captain stopped his kick by his arm, causing Lotor to back down but ripped the shackles out and slamming them against the wall to remove the metal from his wrists.

“...Don’t you dare insult, YOUR EMPEROR! ” He summoned his sword and sprinted towards the captain’s face so fast, that he twisted his sword to slam the tip of his hilt at the center of the captain’s chest and punch his face with his left hand. He stood at the edge of the door, watching the flames eat up the wreckage throughout the Galran base, readying his sword in his hand for an attack.

====================================================================

Somewhere, years ahead, a certain paladin looks across the universe quietly. Wondering, if at all, would they ever reunite ever again...


	3. Friend

Liquid escaped from the glass at a rapid rate with colors shifting back and forth from golden to violet at each extraction. Hundreds, if not thousands, of vials of this golden quintessence, was lifted into different cargo sets and handled by the druids to convert the raw energy into refined Galran standards. Druids lined up, casting out their hands to place their magic on each vial and another smaller druid completed the same task. She cast out her hands on the vial on the assembly line and dropped down in weakness before being reprimanded by Macidus, the head druid.

“Concentrate! Or should you experience a palenbol to understand your role!” He shouted at her.

The young druid nodded and stood up quickly to cast out her hands quickly to convert the quintessence into the familiar pinkish violet.

The crown prince observed the incident from a balcony overlooking the operation, where Kova rested on his shoulders quite peacefully. He was given the role to rule over a planet with its own colony and was instructed to observe the conversion of the raw quintessence extracted by the Komar. He disliked the Komar and the one leading the Komar.

“Bring me that druid to me.” He told one of the sentries. “I like to speak with this one.”

They brought her to Lotor, where he sat down on a chair and Kova rested on one of the arms rests. She kept her silence, looking up to Lotor with her druid mask still on. Something shuffled beneath her cloak, causing Lotor to glance up at her curiously. “What are you hiding there?”

She lifted up her hood to reveal that she had no eyes at all.

Lotor blinked and casually rested his head on the back of his hand. “Huh. You can understand me right?” She nodded, letting her tiny ears twitch. “So what is your name?” Lotor asked.

Kova got up from the armrest and headed towards her. He sat before her and meowed aloud, causing her to look down and lower herself to the feline moving his tail back and forth. Soon a tail popped out behind her cloak and repeated the same movement like Kova’s tail.

“Interesting…” Lotor watched. She stretched out her hand and Kova remained still, letting her pet the ancient creature. Soon Kova’s eyes glowed, causing the cat to turn around and move towards Lotor. He rose his head up and sat up straight as his cat got closer toward him. The cat turned his head, as the female druid repeated the same. Kova jumped up back to the armrest and looked at Lotor’s face for a while. Lotor became rather uncomfortable by the awkward silence. “If you could…please explain what you are doing?” He looked at her a bit worried yet intrigued. Kova meowed for Lotor to pet him, nudging against his arm, where Lotor looked at her again and proceeded to pet Kova.

Can you hear me…?

“Gah!” Lotor took his hand off of Kova quickly. He stared at her in amazement. “…You have a talent!” He chuckled at the young druid. “Granted, telepathy isn’t exactly my favorite but this is rather splendid.” He smirked at Kova. Placing his hand on Kova’s head, he began to hear the hollowed echoes of her voice and proceeded to query.

“Who are you?”

Narti. A half-breed Galra for the purpose of fulfilling the role as a Druid for the Galran Empire.

“Why did you choose to be a Druid?”

Being a druid gives me the purpose of utilizing my alchemic abilities present from my previous race.

“Why would you say ‘previous’?”

Because…I am much more useful as a Galran as my other side is considered weaker.

Lotor knitted his eyebrows together as he stared at her, looking down in quiet shame but turning up at her in determination. “You are not weak. It is that side of you that makes you stronger instead.”

What of you? Do you know who you are?

“That…is another conversation for another day.” He looked away.

I apologize. It was not my intention to offend the prince of the empire.

“Don’t apologize for that. You are welcome to speak with me with anything you are curious about.” He smiled. “Now how does this all work, actually?” He looked at Kova with a bit of excitement.

================================================================

Kari sat in her cell wondering if she would be released or even speak with anyone. It seemed like a hundred vargas since she was kept her. Soon, she heard an explosion, scooting up to the window in her cell to see of what was happening outside. She caught the sight of what appeared to be…fashion pirates? Several Galrans was decked out with colorful scarves and spectacular hairstyles as they fired their weapons at the robotic sentries.

“Look for Lotor! The transmission reports that the captain of this base kept him here in a prison cell!”

“If we find him, we’ll be super-duper rich by the Galran Empire for this!”

“Or even Sendak’s forces! We would get new ships and more battle armor!”

“Check over here!” They broke down the door on Kari’s cell, where the source of the voice belonged to a taller blue elfish Galran woman. “What the…”

“Y’all I’m leaving over here. Acxa go take care of that runt when we find long-hair sally, m’kay!” A fellow stylish Galran waved back and headed to another direction.

“Yeah…” She pouted and turned her head to Kari again, walking up toward her.

“Don’t touch me!” Kari shouted.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” Acxa looked at her shackles.

“How do I trust you if you’re one of the Galra?” She glared at her.

“Because I fight differently than the Galra and clearly think differently as well. Hold still. ” She broke the shackles with her gun.

“I guess I’ll think differently toward you,” Kari muttered sarcastically.

“And you will.” Acxa retorted, making Kari’s shoulders jump.

“Wait… do you know where Kal is?”

“Kal…? Who’s that?” Acxa looked down at her rather confused.

“He wears a mask like mine’s and he has long red marks on his cheeks, purple skin, and long fluffy white hair too!” Kari hurried towards the door. “I have to find him!”

Acxa was disturbed by the girl’s description. There’s no way… “Let’s go look for him then…” She spoke wearily. Did he escape the rift…? But if that’s the case, then where is Voltron? She looked at the girl in horror. No…he destroyed them. Her face became pale. Looking back at the girl and given how friendly she was with this ‘Kal’...perhaps this might not be the same Lotor she knew before, but the dread weighed on her mind. He was the witch’s son, after all…

Lotor ran through the hallways, slicing down sentries in half in mere ticks.

One after another --- slice, slice, and slice.

Kari…where is she? He wondered as he wandered throughout the parts of the base, reaching the prison cells but not finding her in any of them. He realized he had to move up the higher floors if that’s where they kept the interrogation rooms. He moved around parts of the corridors, where flames decorated the halls. To his luck, he was able to find the mask Kari made that he dropped earlier, putting it on. And quite suddenly after that, a group of rather fashionable Galra run past him, to his surprise. He let out a sigh of relief and quickly moved on before being stopped by an invisible figure. He realized he couldn’t move at all. He realized he was tricked into a trap.

“I had a feeling you needed that mask.” The invisible figure revealed herself as a red alien with blue and yellow stripes across her face and long antenna. “Now who you might be under that hood?”

“Tell us where Lotor is!” A huge Galra with big koala-like ears bellowed out behind him.

“Tell us, or else Zethrid is gonna be pretty mad.” She smiled mischievously.

“That’s my girl, Ezor!” Zethrid laughed as she threw her sledgehammer punch towards his face.

Lotor quickly used the strength in his upper body to overthrow Zethrid by her punching arm above him at Ezor and quickly ran down the hallway as fast as he could. How do I know them! Why were they so familiar to me! Why do I feel like running from them? His thoughts raced through his mind as he raced down the corner of the hall. It doesn’t matter now. He had to find Kari and make sure that she’s safe.

Lotor…Does my ability offend you…? A familiar half-Galran called out his name in a foggy memory.

He stopped and tried to breathe for a tick. Looking around him warily, he began to wonder about his connection with those two who attacked him earlier. Are they after him for blood or something else? The itching feeling couldn’t rest with him. He had a feeling he had worked alongside them, comrades even. If so, why would they have to separate? He wanted to know so badly.

The flames crawled throughout the hallways.

“Kal!” A small voice called out for him.

He looked up and realized that he was in the intersection of the two hallways, wondering which cardinal direction the voice came from. A swift of air passed by his ear, causing him to pull up his hood and wrap a piece of cloth around the hilt of his sword. Acxa stepped forward and quickly pointed her gun at his face as Lotor pointed his sword at her own simultaneously.

A sweat carried at her forehead. “…Sir? Is that you…?” She gripped on the gun.

He remained silent, not sure of who this person was. “…Who are you?”

“Sir, is it really you under that mask?” She clenched her teeth. “Why do you not recognize me?”

His blade was near her neck at this point.

“Kal! Kal, you dum-dum!” The two turned to the source of the voice.

“Kari…!” He whispered.

“So you know the child…?” Acxa raised her eyebrows and stepped away from him, lowering her gun.

“Kal! There you are, dum-dum!” She ran up to him with a hug, despite her size. “I thought you were dead…” Small tears carried in her eyes.

“I’m partially dead, remember?” He sighed in relief.

“Kari, step away from the man,” Acxa told Kari.

She turned around in surprise. “Why should I? Clearly, you haven’t met Kal before, have you?”

“I’m not sure right now.” She looked at Lotor. “Sir, what happened to you? How did you escape the rift?”

“The rift?”

Acxa stared at him in horror.

“We need to get out of here!” Kari spoke up between them. “I don’t know how you guys know each other but we can’t stand here.”

Lotor stood firm. “She’s right. We---“

Kari screamed as her body was lifted off the ground, where she tried to pull an invisible force choking at her neck.

“Honestly, I can’t believe you’re even alive.” She revealed herself from her camouflage. A bead of sweat fell on the side of her face. “So…you defeated Voltron, huh?”

“What?” Before he could attack, he was pulled up by muscular figure behind him.

“I can’t believe you’re alive, sir.” Zethrid stared in awe. “What in the world are you wearing? Where have you been this whole time?”

“Yeah, especially when you went batshit crazy on us too,” Ezor added, lifting Kari up in the air.

“Ezor, please! Put the girl down!” Acxa pleaded her.

“Oh, now you’re gonna act like a goodie-two-shoes here? Look at this girl and look at us, Acxa. Sooner or later this girl is gonna end up like us like how Lotor decided to go off with his own plans for bringing peace to the universe or some shit.” She glared at her and Lotor. “Associating with him only brings more trouble for us. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he threw the girl away after---!”

“Ezor, please!” Acxa begged her.

“NARTI! HE KILLED NARTI!” She yelled, strangling Kari further to make her cry.

Lotor pointed his sword at Ezor. “Let Kari go!”

“You’re gonna point that thing at me? The same thing that took away her life!” Ezor glared at him.

A faint memory arose in his mind.

Lotor…? Can you hear me…?

The image of her slain body on the ground of their falling ship with a cat looking up at him, questioning his actions. He gasped and dropped his sword, disintegrating into violet dust.

“So you really are the son of the witch?” She lowered Kari, loosening her grip.

He rose his hands up. “Please let her go…” He begged but Zethrid grabbed Lotor from behind.

Acxa fired her gun at Ezor, stunning her instantly, and letting go of her grip on Kari.

“What are you doing?! ” Zethrid cried out but soon Acxa jumped on the sides of the walls quickly to jump above Zethrid’s height to kick her down at her face.

“Follow me!” Acxa told Lotor and Kari, as they ran with her through the corridors, up the stairs, and finally, a door opening up to the outside of the facility. They ran deeper into the woods, and drones came out as Acxa fired them down quickly with her gun. Finally, they reached the base of the mountain where Acxa’s cruiser was parked, opening the cockpit. “Kari, come up here!” She pulled up the girl to the seat and turned around, seeing Lotor at the ground. “What are you waiting for, sir?”

“Acxa...?” He looked up at her.

“Yes? We have to go!” She stretched out her hand. A memory arose in his mind of her instead of pointing a gun at him.

For Narti. Her voice echoed out in the desolate ruins of his home planet.

“I…” He spoke weakly but soon another explosion erupted at the facility, and Lotor began to notice a sight of green leaves growing beneath his feet and slowly began to spread. “I’m coming with you.” He stepped up into the cockpit with Kari in the back seat, watching Acxa flip the controls and tug them back to accelerate into the atmosphere in a matter of ticks.

===============================================================================

Allura looked at the pod where Shiro was kept and began to ponder upon the quintessence flowing from her fingers to the clone body she put his soul in. She wasn't sure. After everything that had happened, was it really alright? She had so many questions. So many to count the stars above her head. Romelle stated that she only knew part of the truth but they all never could figure out why would Lotor do it in the first place. She began to wonder but felt pain in her throat. She felt like she was losing confidence in herself. Was her judgment really correct? How would she know....? She made the decision to overthrow the emperor but felt angry with herself to leaning on her biases and the team's overall opinion, rather than herself. Over time, she felt like she was drifting away from the team and began to feel shame for herself for trusting Lotor in the first place. Krolia was checking Shiro's vitals and walked over to her to place her shoulder on her. For a moment she felt a chill, remembering the time she poured so much of her alchemic ability into the ships Lotor and her built to bring free quintessence to save the entire universe from war. In that time, she had trusted him. But the warmth from Krolia's hand and the familiar touch from Lotor's made her stop and step away from Shiro's pod.

"Allura, you need to rest," Krolia spoke to her.

"How can I...? " Tears flowed past Allura's cheeks. "I've done everything I can to make sure Shiro was alive because of how I and all of just---!"

"It's not your fault, Allura." Krolia hugged her. "Sweetie, you can't blame on yourself solely for this."

Allura fell silent, remembering the paladins' reaction after the whole event and even losing the castle of lions. They couldn't speak with her for days when they were each individually traveling in their own lions. Whenever they had a conversation in which Allura had a chance to speak, there was always an awkward silence. Romelle tried to cheer up Allura but felt tenser with her each time. She didn't know the right decision. She couldn't appear weak before her team. She can still remember the maniacal laughter of her former love falling into oblivion, with no one to save him despite his sins. Could someone really save someone of their sins? Was she truly correct to abandon him?

"Allura, what's wrong?" Krolia asked her gently.

"...We left him! We left him to die, Krolia! I..." Her voice cracked. "I can never forgive myself for that. I betrayed our customs to bring peace to the universe. And for what? Destroying his life? He turned into a monster because I made those ships for him! "

"You have to be stronger than this. I know the feeling of losing a loved one because I had to make the hard decision to abandon my loved ones to help the universe too, Allura." Krolia spoke weakly, causing Allura to stop crying.

"Krolia, you mean your husband and Keith...?" Allura gently stepped away from the hug. "How did Keith managed to keep himself from being angry at you after you left him?"

"It was hard at first but it took a lot of talking. Lots, and lots, and lots of it. We had arguments here and there but what mattered more is that he learned to forgive me in the end. He doesn't have to apologize for the hurt I caused him for leaving him but it mattered more that we were able to reconcile. It took two years of it." Krolia chuckled.

Allura smiled weakly. "I see..." Her smile grew into worry. "I don't know if that could ever be accomplished in this case...He probably lost sight of who he is now.."

"Then do what you do best, then." Krolia pointed to Shiro. "It's who you are that makes you so great."

They watched from afar the sight of a peacefully sleeping man who's life was brought back.


	4. Found

The crown prince sat with Kova in his chair in his own private cruiser with more ships by his side. He felt empty inside as he watched the stars beyond the deck of his ship, operated by other robotic sentries. He was banished from the Galran Empire after his failure to rule his planet properly. He felt like he was on the verge of tears but Kova purred next to him for comfort. He had lost Ven'tar and her people. He wanted to ensure a better chance for the planet to remain stable and extract quintessence without harming the planet nor the people with Ven'tar's help. He had lost entire histories, languages and their dialects, customs, festivals, and families… He was silent in disbelief that he lost everything. Now there was nothing for him at this point. Soon, Lotor couldn't pay attention to everything that was happening around him. He gave back his protocol IDs, his licenses, some of the positions of the planets he was supposed to rule later, and anything else he was commanded by his father to lose his place as an exiled prince. All he had were three ships. A mere amount compared to the hundreds of thousands his father led over. His rank as a prince was laughable to most Galra, looking down on him and pitying him that he was able to get as far as he could because he just so happened to be the emperor's sole son. He took a breath and opened up a holographic interface to debrief himself with anything to distract him. It was only a few deca-phoebs since his failure.

“Prince Lotor…” High Priestess Haggar appeared on the screen.

He narrowed his eyes, refusing to look at her. “What is it?”

She scowled at him and raised her eyebrows. “You check the outpost on the far sector on quadrant nine and ten. The operations will be held by one of my students.”

“Your druids?” Lotor, still refusing to turn his head.

“Yes. They shall keep an eye on you as you look over the operation of how to properly extract quintessence without collaboration with your colonists. Report to me when you have completed your tasks. Vrepit Sa.”

“Vrepit Sa.” He spoke flatly and the screen disappeared.

He found himself in the facility as he was guided by the sentries to his position. A line of druids had welcomed him but he refused to look at any of them. He then looked around the quarters of the assembly operations but soon Kova jumped from his shoulders toward a particular druid. Lotor realized that it was Narti.

Over time, he watched the orientations of the extraction processes with the druids. Over time, he observed their magic. Over time, he promoted one of the druids to be part of his own personal squadron. Narti was the first member of his crew. Haggar didn’t want to lose one of her best students, especially Macidus who was angered heavily that the exiled prince would dare take one of his pupils too.

“You dare take my student for your foolish brigade!” Macidus yelled at him.

“Silence! I would have none of your insolence towards the prince of the Galran Empire!” He glared at him. “Narti is appointed by me to be part of my squad and you have no say over it by the power of your position!”

“Let him be, Macidus.” Haggar spoke over them on the screen.

“ _High Priestess!_ ” Macidus pleaded.

“He is the prince and taking in a half-breed like himself makes our sect much purer. _Vrepit Sa._ ” She ended the call promptly.

He glared at Lotor, who was rather smug but disdain towards by Haggar’s end of her comment. “Vrepit Sa…” He turned off the call as well.

Lotor leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I hate that witch.” He petted Kova.

 _As do I…_ Narti kneeled down before Lotor.

“Please! There is no kneeling for a general such as yourself!” He waved his hand.

She pulled over her hood and began to sign. _The way how you have taught me this language is rather useful to me…I don’t have to keep using Kova to be my guide as I can now stand by my own to speak…This language…You got it from Ven’tar, right…?_

His eyes looked down in grief. “ _Yes._ ” Pulling his hand from Kova.

_If I ever die, I like to thank her for spreading such kindness to you and me…_

“Why must you say that?” He looked at her with concern.

_Because I am a druid, I am also filled with the witch’s hateful magic. At any point of life, she can choose to kill me of her own will or even use me against you or anyone else innocent…I wish to avoid that but if I am unable to fight back with my will…please take away my life._

He chuckled. “Narti, please don’t say that.” He gave a sad smile.

Kova’s eyes glowed for Narti to see Lotor’s face.

_I have the ability to see because of Kova, Lotor…Please be honest when you speak…_

He looked at her with a warm smile. “Alright, I promise to be honest.”

_Will you promise me that if I ever double-cross you, that you take me down for the sake of the universe…?_

“Narti, I do not want to promise that. I do not wish to take away your life. You mean more than this.” He assured him.

_I can accept that as your promise then…_

“Speaking of which--!” Lotor turned to Kova and back to Narti. “If you’re gonna be my general, I expect you to have a set of eyes to watch my back.” He chuckled. “Kova, go to Narti.” The cat obeyed and walked toward Narti who picked him up.

_I-I don’t deserve Kova…_

“Trust me. You need him more than I do.” He smiled.

It was overtime that Lotor grew with more soldiers at his hand, more ships at his feet, and more generals watching behind his back. He needed to strengthen the grasp of his reduced power as an exiled prince. And so he went searching for more ways that his mother’s culture could possibly help the universe as a whole. Soon he explored planets with various Altean structures like temples, underground libraries, and caves hidden within planets. He began to realize that even some of the people hidden away in the far stretches of the galaxy happened to be Alteans as well, keeping track of planets and reports of possible Alteans. But he also realized that he needed to keep them safe from the witch’s eyes such as the druids themselves, asking Narti to look for generals as he looked for his mother’s people. By the time, Lotor realized that the quantum abyss was not susceptible to Haggar’s magic, he tested out a route and noticed that there was a trans-reality effect interfering with Narti’s magic. He scheduled a route for his own ships, cargo, for now, to keep a low-tech presence to avoid surveillance, where they were carried over to a planet where he built a base using the sentries that he had Narti reprogram to build structures for the Alteans. Soon, he realized that Narti could control people with her magic, which began to give him a rather nice advantage when getting ships and all from high-ranking generals from the Galran Empire. This meant better equipment and better weapons as well.

On one planet, they explored a desert planet with an unruly Galran leader forcing slaves of his colony to build great structures and move heavy cargo in the harsh heat. Lotor noticed a girl with great muscular built who was hit by the leader to keep moving a large plank of bricks over her head, even though she hasn’t had food or water in days. He instructed the leader to back down but he refused, challenging Lotor to a duel. Narti and Kova watched the prince effortlessly take down the tyrant, letting him sink into the sand and grabbed a bowl of water for the girl.

“Please don’t offer that to me, prince. I am not full Galra…”A tear fell in her eye.

“You are the strongest person I know.” He smiled proudly. “You are made of two things that bring you up, just that those bricks that society or even that awful master might throw on you. You can be an incredible person without having to be half of something that others wanted.”

She looked up at him with a smile, and soon she followed after him to various more planets across the galaxy, competing in matches to have fun with Lotor and Narti, and even fighting alongside them as they conquer more and more challenges in the cosmos.

On another planet, the crew of four (counting Kova) found a black market in one of the islands in search of materials to build for Lotor’s grand plan. One of the merchants were selling items in an auction that the four attended in disguise and looked up to see a dancer with lovely coral skin and blue-yellow marks across her body. She jumped up from her cage and demonstrated her flying abilities, and danced beautifully to enchant the audience and even Zethrid. Lotor smirked at Zethrid and quickly she blushed angrily at Narti and Lotor laughing at her, disrupting the audience’s attention and catching the girl’s attention toward Zethrid who raised her fist. The bid caller accidentally asked Zethrid if she was a bidder and she sweated nervously. Lotor raised his hand and called out an obscenely high number and Zethrid gaped at him and quickly called out another. Soon enough, they were calling various numbers, deals, or any trades to take the girl with them.

“I like to take the girl for a quadrillion GAC!” Lotor laughed aloud.

“I-I LIKE TO TAKE HUNDRED QUADRILLION GAC FOR HER!” Zethrid cried out frantically.

The girl started laughing in her cage in tears of laughter but was halted by the bid caller, tapping on the metal bars. “Now, now, don’t act so happy there.” He glared at her, which caught the attention of Lotor and Zethrid who glared back at the bid caller. “Going once! Going twice! SOLD!” He slammed down the mallet.

Behind the circus tent, the bid caller walked up to them with the girl chained with shackles by two burly men behind her. She glanced at the two behind them and sighed, but was soon stunned to see the prince when he removed his hood, smiling at Lotor much to Zethrid’s disdain. Suddenly, the bid caller laughed darkly and looked at Lotor with a clenched smile. “To think it was the prince just jerking around with his time during his exile, huh? Now, what brings you over to this lowly part?”

“You’re right. I do seek entertainment.” The prince smirked. Narti appeared behind the two men holding the girl in chains and swiftly took them out with her tail. “And I also don’t wish to pay for entertainment that might disappoint me as well.” He chuckled.

“How dare you!” He looked at his knocked-out men and back at him. “What makes you say that!?” Swiftly, Zethrid slammed down her fist on top of his head. He fell back and Zethrid walked up to the girl.

“What is your name?” Lotor asked gently, where the girl looked up.

“E-Ezor…” She looked at him and back to Zethrid, who broke her chains.

“You are free, Ezor.” Zethrid almost stuttered at Ezor’s beauty.

“Where am I going to go?” She looked worried.

“Wherever you want to be. Wherever you desire to go.” Lotor walked up to her and extended his hand to her. “We can take you there.”

She looked at his hand and back at him. “Galra…I’m only part of that…”

“As do I.” He smiled, causing Ezor to blush.

“ _AND ME TOO!_ ” Zethrid bobbed her head between them. Lotor started laughing again and Zethrid quickly started arguing with him as he nodded his head to her bumbling retorts.

Ezor watched them all and noticed Narti by her side, which Kova on her shoulders, reaching her hand out to pet. Kova almost swiped his hands at her but was caught by Narti who shook her head at the cat. Ezor felt the soft fur across the bony body of Kova. “He’s so cute.” She giggled. “What’s his name?”

_Kova…_

“ _Wah!_ ” Ezor shrieked as she lifted her hand off of the cat, causing both of them to turn as Zethrid pulled Lotor by his collar.

“Trust me, even I have a hard time getting used to that,” Lotor replied slyly as he looked away with a nostalgic smile.

They traveled together on Lotor’s ship and soon each of them learned how to pilot their ships, with Ezor being the fastest of them all. Working together on different operations and even on their own as Lotor hurried away to keep an eye on the Alteans. When he returned to the colony, he was rather stunned that they made a statue of him in their gratitude for him. He felt immensely breathless by their sheer love for him even though he thought the statue was incredibly cheesy but smiled for them as a thank you. A part of him thought about changing the statue to that of Honerva instead, his personal hero to look up to as she was his mother. He began to wonder of where she was this whole time…

They stumbled across a planet full of rain, where he told the crew to wait back in the ship for him. He wore a dark cloak over him and walked over to a tavern where Alteans were hidden in disguise and he told them that the Galra would never find them in this place for their peace. After taking them into the cargo ship for his safety, he noticed a young girl lying on the side of the wall in an alleyway. Her eyes and cheeks were sunken as if she hasn’t eaten for days, and her violet hair fell past her shoulders with two black long horns across her head. She looked at Lotor with eyes that could peer into someone’s soul.

Lotor stopped and closed the door on the ship to walk toward the girl under the rain. Busy street dwellers moved away and passed by the girl but soon she realized that he was walking up to her.  He asked her, “Are you hungry…?”

She nodded weakly. “Leave me…I am dirtied-blood Galra, sir.”

He clenched his jaw. “No, you are a beautiful child who needs food, water, and a home.” He kneeled down before her. “You deserve happiness than to just waste away like this. Come with me and you can become someone greater and stronger.”

“Why must you say that?” She tilted her head.

“Because I see someone who knows how to make the right decision.”

=======================================================================

The fire embers cracked before Acxa as she tossed charcoal into the pit. Using a stick, she pushed some of the fuel to make the flames gently grow to bring warmth for her guests. They were situated on a moon on a greater planet with rings in the vertical and horizontal direction. The night stars showered over the silk of blue sky and the embers lifted themselves up from the fire to reach the heavens.

“All life returns back above, doesn’t it…” She looked up and stared back at Kari whose nose was wrinkled and eyes looking at the sand beneath her feet. She felt bad for the girl for what the Galra Empire had done to her home but felt so perplexed of what happened to her former superior. “Sir…you really don’t remember what happened to you…?” He sat by the fire and wrapped his arms around his knees, looking up to Acxa with his face now exposed. She couldn’t believe how much more he looked like his mother. She couldn’t believe that she didn’t catch it earlier during the years she served as his right-hand. “Do you remember me, Zethrid, and Ezor…?”

“It’s…foggy, unfortunately. All it is, are just feelings I have when I look at you all. I know the star systems, the Galran architecture, and pieces of when I was a child. I know Zarkon, Haggar, and Honerva.”

“Wait don’t you know that--?”She stopped herself, changing the subject from jumping into personal territory. “Do you remember that you were exiled?”

“I…believe so.” He ran his hand through his hair.

“I see.” Acxa stopped and looked at Kari. “I’m sorry you didn’t know that ‘Kal’ was the Galran Emperor, did you?”

“I can see that he truly is a forgettable fool.” She smacked her lips bitterly. “Your name was Lotor this whole time, huh?”

“It’s not your fault, Kari.” She looked at her. “I don’t know about where your parents may be.”

“Maybe because they’re dead? Maybe because they and my village and myself were robbed because of the Galra?” She glared at her with tears forming. Turning her head at Lotor and quickly ran up to him and started punching at his chest. He coughed by the first punch and Acxa watched the small child beat down the man’s chest repeatedly. “You lied to me! You lied to me! My dad could have been alive had it not been for you all! My mom wouldn’t have betrayed us and me if she didn’t choose an easy way out by siding with you all! And look where it got her! Dead! Dead! Dead! MY FATHER! MY PEOPLE! …YOU LIED TO ME!” Her sobs weaken her punches and she fell on the ground crying with the fire still burning and Acxa feeling sorry for the small orphaned nymph.

“Kari…I--”A final punch landed on his chest, right where his heart was, and soon a memory blossomed in his mind.

_How many…?! HOW MANY!?_

Back in near the edge of the rift, a woman cried out and also smiled for him.  A woman who he once knew, who believed in him, who understood him, who he fell greatly in love with…her name…her name was---

“Allura…” He spoke in his breath.

Acxa stared as Kari stopped. They watched Lotor stand up and walk beyond the campfire.

“Sir…where are you going?” She asked him.

“I don’t know but I know that I shouldn’t be here. I need to get back. I need to return back to someone named Allura…” Lotor stared at the stars. “She might be the key to helping me understand what I need to do.” He turned around at them. "I believe I was supposed to save the universe by ending this war."


	5. Gift

Passing by several moons in their journey, Acxa turned her head around to see Kari and Lotor silent in the back. She took a small sigh and looked forward. A question began to bother her at the back of her mind, however.

“You remember your duel with Zarkon, right?” She asked as she tilted the controls to the right.

He snapped out of his daze from looking outside to think of more memories he must have missed and he turned to her with a solemn gaze. “I…remember fearing for my life. But also wanting to stop him as well. It’s funny to think that one of the greatest enemies in my life happens to be my own father.” He turned his head and found Kari asleep but had a feeling she would be awake. He dismissed the thought and kept speaking. “I keep on remembering when I was a child too. I was brought before the throne room with Dayak sometimes and later without her as I got older. I seemed to remember that as I got closer to the memory of fighting with him, there was a group of people I felt like I wanted to earn their trust with. They seemed suspicious of me. I believe it was because I was the son of the tyrant."

“How exactly did the emperor of a ten-thousand-year-old reign die?” She spoke casually.

He wrinkled his nose. “I saw a beam of light coming from him and it was directed at the people I wanted to earn favor with. Then I ran and stabbed him in the back with the debris from his fallen ships.”

“So you never really killed your father by your sword, as you said at the Kral Zera.”

“Kral Zera?”

“It’s a ceremony where they choose a new emperor for the Galran Empire. When your father died, team Voltron helped you obtain the throne.”

“Where were you in my memories?” He turned his head up.

She was silent for a moment and then spoke. “When you dueled with your father, I was working with him along with Zethrid and Ezor. It was supposed to be an exchange to get you back to the former emperor with one of the paladin’s missing father, Sam Holt, we held hostage. Back the Kral Zera, we sided with Haggar and opposed to you becoming the new emperor as Sendak, who was Zarkon’s student.”

He blinked. “That’s…awfully harsh of you.”

She raised one of her eyebrows. “That’s all you can say?”

“Well, it just seems like everyone was after my head and even you too.” He chuckled, wrapped his fingers together. “Makes me curious to know what exactly I was as a person.” He grinned. “Although to be fair, I can understand that you had your own motives too.” Narrowing his eyes, Lotor began to remember the scene of her pointing a gun at him as soon as he turned his back from looking at something…something paramount. “Is it _normal_ for you to double-cross people?”

“Not unless the person proves to fail my expectations.” She retorted a bit bitter, causing Lotor to chuckle.

“Now Acxa---“ He grinned.

“Don’t _‘now Acxa’_ me!” She snapped with a sour face at him and turned back to the controls.

“Was he like your ex or something?” Kari woke up, causing an awkward silence between the two. She yawned and knitted her eyebrows at the two. “Maybe _siblings_?”

“ _He used to be my boss_.” She spoke flatly.

“That’s pretty cool that you would exchange your boss to get whatever you want.”

“Kari, that’s not how you want to think.” Lotor quickly waved her hand at her.

“Perhaps I can right now. Sooner I get rid of you, _the sooner I’ll be at peace._ ” Acxa narrowed her eyes.

“Oh dear, now look what you have done.” Lotor felt rather nervous toward Kari and Acxa.

They landed on a desert planet with a lime-green atmosphere, parking the cruiser near a couple of sand dunes as they traveled to a bazaar bustling with aliens of various races. Lotor kept his mask on and hood up while Kari kept her mask away. They walked past a couple of spice stands along with meat and vegetable stands with produce extracted from various parts of the galaxy. Soon enough they come across a stand with the word _‘Unilu’_ , causing Lotor to stop.

“I _feel_ like I know what this is…” Lotor walked forward.

Lifting the beaded tarp above his head, Lotor, Kari, and Acxa walk inside one by one. The shop was filled with a variety of artifacts collected throughout the expanse of the universe. Astrolabes, 4D Olkarion cubes, alchemic carpets, golden nun-chucks, bottles of multicolored potions, spinning hourglasses, and scavenged hardware parts from Galran ships. A memory surfaced of him as a child as he was observing the markets for his economic studies and caught his eye at the Unilu shop’s collection of wonders and wanted to visit there himself on the day. Kari looked over a table where various tiny bottles with miniature figures of people inside. She tugged Lotor’s shirt.

“What are these?” She asked him, causing him to bend down and look.

“ _Why_ …aren’t these voodoo dolls?” He stared in awe.

“And right they are!” The shop owner walked in carrying stacks of silks piling up in a tower. He set them down on the counter and walked over to them. “They say you can use a person’s very soul trapped within these vials of glass as if you have their very lives in your hands! Very sadistic, would you say---OH WHOA WHOA!!” He jumped up from Lotor and pointed his shaking hand at him. “ _Is that…!?”_

Acxa grabbed her gun before pulling out and Kari grabbed an arrow behind her, ready to stab the shop owner’s eye if needed.

“ _IS THAT!?_ ” He gulped, building the suspense towards the girls and Lotor who felt a bead of sweat on his face. “THE DALTERIAN MASK THE GREAT TRIGEL HAD WORN IN BATTLE!!”

The three stared at him in silence and then sighed in relief.

Lotor coughed. “Uh…yes. What about it?”

“It’s worth hundred quadrillion GAC!” The shop owners had stars in his eyes, moving his hands slowly to feel the dark red wooden mask. “Please! I must have it! I’ll trade anything in this shop to have it!”

“Oh! In that case, can I get—?”Acxa pointed at a series of galactic rifles but Lotor pulled Kari and her in a corner to talk privately.

“Kari… you did say you were a descendant of Trigel, right?” He asked her.

“Yes but that’s only a legend though. It’s been thousands of years since her line supposedly died out.” She crossed her arms in a pout. “I can make those masks any day, along with battle armor too. It’s what my dad did as a craftsman.”

Acxa and Lotor stared at her incredulously and realized they hit a gold mine.

“ _So many ships just like that…_ ” Acxa stared in the distance just thinking of the numbers.

“ _So many resources to travel…_ ” Lotor was bemused by the sheer treasure, feeling it on his fingers.

“I _literally_ carved it out from a _dead tree_.” Kari flatly spoke. “Geez, you people are greedy.”

“You’re just a kid.” They both patted her on the head.

Lotor jumped back to the counter where the shop owner, extravagantly leaning across it and flashed a toothy smile to charm the rather confused yet enchanted man. “ _How much you said this mask cost, hmmm?_ ” He leaned in closer with a little smirk. “Please…tell me, _again_.” His voice became deeper.

“ _I…_ ” The shop owner felt like there were rose petals flying past his ears. “It’s a hundred quadrillion GAC, sir…” His eyes softened as he slowly leaned closer to look at the mask’s craftsmanship. “Such detail…”

“So _exquisite_ \--- _yes_?” He played with his eyebrows behind the mask.

The shop owner blushed. “I…what must I trade to have that mask or _even_ \--!”

“ _Hush now_ …!” He felt his chin delicately with his finger and revealed his fangs, causing Acxa to quickly cover Kari’s eyes from looking.

“Whoa, what is happening?!” Kari cried out.

“ _I don’t even know right now…_ ” Her eyes grew wide at the sight with horror and awe. She knew Lotor could sweet talk, but she’s never seen him with much less restraint.

“ _Who are you behind the mask…?_ ” The imaginary rose petals intensified around them like a tornado.

“ _A phantom fallen from the stars…_ ” He flashed a gleaming smile and wiggles his fingers to charm the shop owner.

“Oh! I could almost just!” The shop owner jumped over the countertop to dive in for a kiss but Lotor stepped away quickly, causing him to fall straight onto to the floor.

The three looked down on him in a circle in awkward silence. “Is he okay…?” Acxa asked.

“ _Err…_ ” Lotor caught the shop owner having a rose-colored dream with the mysterious phantom who was about to spirit him away. “Maybe we should wait for him to wake up.”

The shop owner arose to the smell of swamp tea drifting to his nostrils. “ _Ah, mother’s favorite_ —wait, hold on!” He sat up straight from the alchemic carpet and two stacks of silk to serve as his pillow. “The mask! Where is the man with the mask?!”

“ _Please_ , he left to grab some food.” Kari took the tea kettle from the flame in the tiny kitchen of the shop. “I call him Kal for short.” She looked bitterly at the swirling green water.

“Kal, huh?” He took the small cup from the small girl and sipped the bitter water quite bitterly. “I made myself into a fool.”

“You ask him the meaning of his name. You’ll get quite a laugh from that.” She stirred the water.

“You have something behind your head, though?” He pointed at her.

“Oh…this.” She pulled out her mask. “My father made this.”

The shop owner blinked. “Wait, you’re Dalterian?”

“I heard Trigel was a paladin of Voltron and lead the Dalterian belt as well. The Dalterians used to be good allies with the Galra. She is supposed to be my ancestor even I’m far shorter than her and my hair wasn’t as long as hers.”

“So this design was carried on to her descendants for generations, then?” He looked at her in awe.

“Yes. Followed by making shields, vambraces, spears, swords, breastplates, and of course the masks of protection.” She looked at her father’s mask held by her small fingers.

“Can you make all of that?” He stared in awe. “The Dalterian craftsmanship is known to be legendary for it’s the long-lasting endurance of their armor.” He set his cup down. “If you were my apprentice, I can let you build these pieces of your forgotten culture to help the Voltron Coalition.” He revealed his coalition badge. “I got it from a good trader friend of mine with orange hair to join the cause.” He gave a smile with a gap between his teeth. “You can travel with me to help bring supplies and materials for them too to help the Coalition just your ancestor Trigel helped out with Voltron.”

She stared at him with big eyes. “I…need to talk to Kal about this.” She looked down.

“Ah! Absolutely! Absolutely, no rush!” He waved his hands.

Lotor walked across the market streets like a ghost. Lanterns were carried by running children through the streets as he watched the people tattered in rags and other material for clothing. He pulled down his cloak and came across the smell of cosmic salmon grilling in a little stand. He pulled out his bag and realized he didn’t have any money until Acxa held her hand in front of him and ordered two sticks of blue fire-roasted fish.

“You intend on returning to Voltron, sir?” She asked but he didn’t turn his head as he was more fascinated by the food, taking a bite into the hot scaly flesh of the fried fish.

He chewed and swallowed with a gulp to finally speak. “Yes.”

“You might not like their reaction if they see you again, sir.” She looked away as they walked. “Your appearance has changed and even the way act seems to be different as well. But…” She smacked her lips. “I’m afraid that you will turn into your bad side if you receive your memories again.”

He raised his eyebrows and turned to look at her. “What do you mean…?”

“You lost your patience, sir.” She looked at the distance.

He felt nervous and asked her another question. “Why did you shoot me back then?”

She raised her eyes and looked back down. “That was because you slew Narti with your sword.”

“So it’s true, then?” He sighed. “I keep on getting memories of her and I never imagine that I would end up doing this to her later on. I also keep on seeing Allura from Kari, especially the way how she speaks about her father... I feel as if I’ve caused so much pain to all three of them.” He frowned sadly. “I wish I can do something to change all of that for them.”

“And for so many more, sir,” Acxa replied. “The universe can’t live on with you preaching for peace, even you do not remember doing so. You have to be proactive about this.”

“You think I can really help change things for all these people.” He turned his head to her.

“I had believed in you back then relying on the fact that you alone could save the universe.” She stopped. “But I wish to find my own path to help the people myself.”

Lotor turned around at her as the people passed them like fading sand. “You...no, I respect your choice.”

She grinned. “The one you’re looking for is Allura, right?” 

He turned his head. “Yes…” He replied shyly.

 “She and you have a lot of talking to do.” She turned around and headed back to the shop with a contented smile.

They returned back to the shop with another space salmon stick for Kari but found her sitting at a lacquered table as she looked at her father’s mask, turning her eyes at both of them. “Kal…”

“Yes, Kari?” He stopped. “What is it?”

She got out from her chair and walked up to Lotor. She was far, far shorter than him, who stood over her like a benevolent giant. “I like to join the Voltron Coalition.” She looked up at him earnestly.

“Really?” Acxa replied in surprise.

“The Coalition?” He asked.

“Yes; they’re the allies and rebels that side with Voltron against the Galran Empire.” She explained.

“It would be amazing if she can help out the coalition as well.” The shop owner returned, catching an eye at Lotor and blushed, and coughed to maintain his composure. “I also wonder if I can recruit you all as well.” He turned around. “Wait right here! One of the rebels is actually here to today so I’ll make a call to make a tour of their operations for you all!” He ran to the back through the strings of beads acting as the door.

Kari stood firm before Lotor. “I know it’s not much but I realize I can’t go back to my planet since there’s no home for me back there. I realized that what my father had taught me in the art of making battle armor is still treasured, then I want to carry on my culture’s legacy.”

He smiled. “Of course. The skills you showed me have great talent and your heart is strong as well. You choose where you want to go and where you want to be, Kari.” He bent down to put his hand on her shoulder.

“But that would be mean separating from you…” She hugged him. “I know I haven’t exactly treated you well these past quintants but I want to give something for you so you won’t forget about me.”

“I can’t wait for it.” He caressed her head softly.

“Great news!” The shop owner returned, causing Kari to jump away from Lotor in a tick. “Tonight, we can catch a ride with the Coalition in their ships.”

They traveled deep into the bazaar and soon found themselves at a tunnel as the entrance to an inactive volcano inside of Acxa’s cruiser. She stopped the cruiser, opening the hatch of the cockpit open. Lotor turned around as well as Kari as the shop owner went on ahead of them to the tunnel.

“Acxa, what’s wrong…?” Lotor turned to her.

“This is far as I am going.” She smiled.

“You’re leaving?” Kari looked worried.

“Yes… I am.” Acxa spoke but soon she felt Kari jump toward her with a hug.

“I’m going to miss you.” A small tear fell past her cheek.

“I do, too.” She smiled but stopped when she looked at Lotor, paying attention to his long corrupted red marks. “Lotor, do you realize that Haggar is---?” She shook her head. “No, Lotor you have to be careful since you escaped the rift.” She set down Kari. “The quintessence from the rift must have caused you to have that deformation.”

He felt his face. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“I don’t know. But where your memories lead you too, you have to be careful about yourself and those around you. Till then, I have to go find my path.” She waved and turned back to her ship, accelerating in a stream of smoke across the desert night.

Lotor and Kari turned around to find another tunnel of darkness like the one on the Galran base so many quintants before. They kept walking down the path and soon light poured out from the end of the tunnel to reveal machinery, fighter jets, tents, and many rebels traveling throughout the facility, where the hole of the mountain above them was the entrance for cargo ships and more. A man with a tiny ponytail, a half-poncho, and an orange-green suit, while holding a pole made of scavenged parts, turned around to meet the guests the Unilu shop owner spoke about.

“Matt! So good to see you! Now how are those Monsters & Mana dice working out for you?” He shook with hand with the taller human boy. “Matt, these are Kari and Kal.” He pointed at each of them.

“Pleasure to meet you too!” He shook hands with both of them.

“Nice to meet you.” Lotor smiled.

“Now Kal, Kari is going to start on her apprenticeship soon and I tend to make a lot of stops through the galaxies to help the spread word and supply for the Coalition. This…might not be the last time you both you would see each other.”

“I understand.” He looked at him and bent down at his knee for Kari. “Be careful out there, alright?”

“I will…” She sniffed and pulled out a wrapped bag and gave it to Lotor. “Open it later, okay?”

“I will.” He hugged her and watched her leave to join up with more apprentices her age, excited to meet the new member in their league as they slowly drifted together away from him with laughter and pride. “I’ll miss you, Kari.” He whispered.

“AUGHHHHHH!” Lotor quickly turned around to the sight of Matt sobbing and quickly squeezing Lotor in his tears. “They’re holding hands! They’re marching to be the next generation of hope! Our future with them is so pure! AUGHHHHHHH!” Matt continued to sob and quickly jumped back from him, coughing to restore his composure. “Hello! My name is Matt Holt!”

“Ah yes! We already did this, but a pleasure to meet you, Matt Holt—.” He blinked and saw a memory of a man similar to Matt in shackles, glasses, and long hair.

  _What exactly are you planning to do…?_ He spoke from his cell with Lotor sitting by him.

_What…?_

“Uh dude, you like blanked out for a second. Are you those types that get paralyzed while awake?” Matt looked concern.

“Uh no, not at all. I do have to apologize for my behavior just there. I don’t quite always know what is going on sometimes.” He chuckled.

“That’s relatable!” He pats him on the back. “I look forward to working with, Kal!”

“Absolutely.” He walked up the steps to Matt’s cruiser, turning around in worry. Matt gave him a tour of the cargo ships and showed Lotor to his own room in Matt’s ship.

“It might not be much but I hope that this can serve as your humble abode, my dude.” He flashed a toothy grin.

“Quite certainly. I appreciate your generosity, Matt.”

“No problem!” He gave a cheery salute and turned back to the door. “Let me know if you need anything.” The door slid behind him, giving Lotor space with his own personal quarters. He sat down on the bed and removed his mask, and found a mirror in front of him. He never noticed his red marks until now…He never noticed them before and felt one of them with his fingers. Picking up Kari’s gift, he opened up the wrapper and found that she had created new armor for him. A new blue shirt, new breastplates, a pair of gloves, and a new dark multi-patterned cloak to replace his old one. He put each of them off, but left the armor he wore since exiting out from his mecha in the forest long ago. I realized that if he needed to access his sword, the vambraces on his arms would be left alone, even though they grazed. His boots and the armor on his legs would be left alone as well. He looked back at the mirror and noticed his braid from Kari was becoming loose, examining the pattern she gave him, and rebraiding it. He pulled his hood over from the new blue shirt he wore, which concealed his white hair. He realized that Kari would know that people would have recognized him as Lotor for his hair. He put on the red wooden mask and stared at the mirror.

It would be a long while for him to remove his hood and mask. But he felt as if a bad omen was coming back to haunt him, should his identity be revealed...


	6. Echo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! Had to spend the holidays with the family and New Year's too! Hope you guys enjoy the chapter! :)

Allura rolled around beneath her comforter three times in a row. She hardly got any rest within the past month. It just rattled her. Like a snake, her thoughts beg and torment her and always hissed even she had the most peace by herself. Her eyes lifted up to the glass portal above her head, watching the stars float and dance so gleefully and wonderfully outside of her Blue Lion. She wished that she could waltz as well, drifting away from the painful memories in such a sweet dream. But what of it…? She felt anger and confusion, and hate…and grief, and so many questions swelling up like restless butterflies within her. She curled up in her blanket. She already cried but again would distract the paladins in the journey back to Earth. She had to act like a leader. She _can’t_ be reckless again. She closed her eyes and took a breath. Opening them, Allura saw Lotor walk alone in the landscape of a desert planet where all the paladins with Matt and Sam Holt were. The prince appeared so weary but his eyes shimmered in determination, however. His armor broken and his hair in disarray, Lotor walked slowly toward them as they all watched the one who killed the tyrant, _his own father._ Sam Holt looked at the paladins and back to Lotor, where he stepped forward but Pidge held his arm quickly.

“Dad, _what are you doing_?” His own daughter who just got her father back after so long felt wary of him being near the fallen despot’s son.

Her father looked at her dearly. "Katie…let me be, okay? I _wish_ to speak with him.” He stretched out his hand to pat on her head and turned to meet up with him.

Lotor's breathing was ragged, clutching on to his right arm tightly, as he walked but stopped when Sam approached him. He looked at the human with a curious sort of fear in his eyes, Allura noted. She remembered that Sam only spoke a few words with him and turned away to return back to Pidge and Matt, with Matt especially with a look mixed with disgust and confusion toward Lotor. There was silence standing between the crew and Lotor as the dust rolled by in the wind. Allura bit her lip and walked up to Lotor, whose expression was numb and sorrowful but squinted his eyes at her, standing up firmly before her. 

Allura breathed in and held her ground in front of him. “There is much to … discuss when returning back to the Castle of Lions. For you to have the black paladin’s bayard was a hazardous choice.” She glared at Shiro and turned back to Lotor with the same. “The whole operation would have resulted in the loss of the one thing that could save the universe...For that one of our objectives ended up being completed rather swiftly. I cannot...” She pulled out shackles into her hands. “We cannot release you as of yet despite the deed you have done. We will have to speak with the group and the Coalition of what can be done for you.”

He lifted both his hands forward for her. “It’s understandable to not trust me so quickly, princess.”

She didn’t know how to feel. She wasn’t sure whether to celebrate such a long-awaited victory in such a circumstance like this. Allura took one of his hands, noticing that his claws retracted as soon as she felt his palms, and placed the shackle on each one of his wrists. She guided him to the pod ship with everyone watching and they followed after the two as they returned back to the castle ship. It was over the course of a few quintants that Allura took the role of patrolling Lotor. He remained silent during their trips of Allura returning and retrieving him from his cell to speak in the few meetings they had before returning to Olkarion. They would pass by Sam Holt who was dressed rather well compared to Lotor, whose armor was still damaged. Allura looked away in guilt as she yet again returned Lotor back to his cell. She couldn’t treat him like this forever… she remembered what he said about judging him by his actions. By the time they arrived on Olkarion, the morning stretched forth over the skies as the Castle of Lions landed on the planet’s main base. Ryner took the Holts will her to discuss the rapid evolution of their technology as the other paladins checked over communications with the Coalition. The elevator just held Allura as it drifted down deeper until it hit the level where he was held in captivity. Everything was moving around her at the idea that Zarkon was dead and the one who took his life was sitting before her in a glass cell. Before she knew it, Lotor was already awake or has been since their departure. His back was turned but no armor was upon him except his suit. The pieces of his armor laid across the bed in a neat formation of where each would have been worn on him. Puzzled, Allura walked forward as her heels clicked in echoes, not even nudging the prince to even turn around at her as he stared at the pieces.

“Lotor…?” She called out to him, still not turning to look at her. “We need you to be in the meeting today.” She tilted her head to see his face. His expression was blank yet his eyes were closed. Allura began to wonder if he was meditating or something. But why without the armor…? What could attack him within his cell even he wore it? She wears her on regardless because her constant call to action to pilot the Blue Lion but felt very much confused as to why he wasn’t responding and leaving himself vulnerable like this.

“A moment, please. It has been a while since I have taken this all off my back.” He finally responded. Pulling his hair to the front, he placed the pieces of armor on himself as Allura watched waiting for him. He turned around to look at her finally and pushed his hair behind his shoulders as Allura stepped up to release him from his cell. He walked over the edge and stood before her to her to lead the way, but Allura stared at the scar across his armor. She looked side-to-side and lifted her eyes at him.

“I…” She felt her arm. “…think you don’t need to wear these shackles on your wrists now. But I noticed that every time I escorted you, you let out grunts of pain quite silently to yourself. It always seemed to happen when you were trying to breathe. I know you are… still processing all of this.”

He looked down. “There is no need to concern yourself with me, princess.”

She looked down as well, but out of boldness, she placed her hand on the center of his chest. “You need to have room to breathe as well, don’t you?

Lotor gazed at her but held his breath. 

She looked up at him. "Take this as a few thanks from me.” A light glowed from her hand across his chest as the soft blue light emanated across his whole body swiftly, with something glittering near his eyes across his cheeks, causing Allura to look up at the strange hallucination. The armor had begun to appear brand new as the light lifted off of his chest. He almost spoke but closed his lips, finally being able to breathe in and out easier. Allura to lift her hand off of him and guided the way to the bridge of the castle without a word.

===========================================================================

Lotor felt the center of his chest as he looked at the mirror in his room. "Time to put this back on again." He examined the new mask he held and wore it, realizing it covered his entire face now. Kari must have modified it for his own safety, he realized. He wore the vambraces, the braces on his legs, breastplate, and placed the cloak over him, pulling the hood over his head. He breathed in and exhaled slowly. "I have to keep moving. I must keep going. I must keep seeking." He stepped out of his room and began to hear someone crying in frustration down the hallway. 

“Damn, why aren’t these transistors linking up with each other yet!” Matt pulled back from his desk and leaned across his seat in frustration. “By theory, the switches should have all lined up to complete the communication circuit, but fuck that when all the signals speak in various frequencies to screw up the connections every few seconds!” He rubbed his hand across his face. “Sometimes I wish Pidge was here to show me what I’m missing.” He turned his head to see Lotor walk into the room past crates of scavenged tech and tools scrambled inside them.

“Hey Kal,” Matt called out for Lotor who was still in disguise with the mask to cover his face. “Do you know anything about Altean and Galran inhibitor connections? I know they’re supposed to be one-to-one but the transistors have trouble hooking up with the overall parallels.”

“May I see?” He leaned over to take a closer look at the tech that Matt was building. “Are these radios?”

“Yep! I need them for the combat missions when we go out on the field from time to time. I suppose you have experience with fighting, especially with that wickedly cool sword you got on yourself.” He pointed out the blade hidden behind a leather sheath. Lotor realized he couldn’t summon his sword the usual way by his old vambraces, otherwise, others would quickly know of who he was, even wrapping up the hilt entirely for his own secrecy.

Lotor felt his sword with a soft grip. “It’s a keepsake of mine. I don’t intend of losing it either. I have fought time after time with it. I must say...The structure of these communication lines is quite extraordinary. Perhaps I can look at the circuitry and see what you’re saying from the venting you have had earlier.”

“If anything, you are welcome to evaluate the many mistakes I make on the daily, partner. Well, I should say _team_ since N7, me, and you are in it. Rolo, Nyma, and Beezer are not with us right now because they’re off in another mission.” He sighed. “Now these _transistors_.”

Lotor felt the circuit boards in his gloved hands, tracing where the signals route toward in the silicon planes. “Have you tried splitting the switches? Perhaps the power delivered on each transistor is bringing a greater amount of the signals you intended in your design.”

“I guess I can try the multiplexors. These Boolean gates get pretty tedious over time, though. Especially when they get to the thousands of bits being communicated from the analog channels to digital.” Matt took the board gently from his hands, pulled out a black mask, and used a laser tool to solder the components together on the board. He lifted up his hood and pulled a magnifying lens to examine the details. “That should do it.” He grinned and then hooked up the board with black and red wires to a multimeter and an oscilloscope to observe the strength of the signal frequencies by the amps, volts, wavelengths, and etc.

Lotor squinted through the cracks of his mask and noticed the crowns of the wavelengths were slightly off. But the flowing patterns of red waves began to distract him. The fluctuating beams of light dancing through the small screen of the oscilloscope caused him to feel the surface of the screen. It felt like it was almost yesterday when he was observing the strength of the wavelengths produced by energy emanating in the cockpit of a young pilot gripping on to the controls in exhaustion _and fear and screaming_ \---

“You okay, Kal?” Matt tapped on his shoulder twice.

“Ah---I must apologize for that. My mind tends to drift sometimes.” He rubbed the bottom of his right arm. “The signal is almost synchronizing. You just need to tweak it a little bit.” He pointed to the parts of the circuit board where Matt needed to fix. “By that, it should be perfect.” He chuckled.

“I see, I see!” Matt’s eyes lit up and quickly tinkered the pieces. “There!” He smiled at the screen and soon a sound cracked through the speakers. “Huh, that’s weird…” He turned the knob to increase the volume. “I’m hearing some beeping clicks in between the propagation peaks in the signal being passed.” He adjusted the frequency, flicking the switches on the side of the device and connected another wire to the board to his small bulky computer. “ _Woah._ ”

“What’s the matter?” He leaned into the computer screen and suddenly realized what was happening.

“ _A distress signal_.” They spoke at the same time.

Matt looked at him and quickly laughed. “Wow, we said it in _synchronization_.” He gave a toothy grin.

“Please, no need for puns for _that connection_.” He grinned wholeheartedly and both of them continued to laugh together loudly.

Another rebel walked into the lab room where they were stationed and stared at them just chortling together. She wore a white helmet over her head with a 'V'-like design etched across the face and wore a green ragged cloak over white armor with black undersuit. She also had a vambrace wrapped around her right wrist and a brown belt around her waist. “What’s going on over here with you two? Matt, did you say that there was a distress signal?”

“ _Shit!"_  He quickly grabbed a pair of headphones and tuned in further of the beeping clicks. “Do you recognize this pattern?” He pulled them off and gave it back to her. “Being used to stressful calls like this has begun to dull my sense of alertness. I promise not to do that anymore.” He smiled at both of them.

She placed them on over her helmet and waited for a few moments before taking them off. “It’s the Blade of Marmora…they’re in need of backup. A couple of druids are destroying a civilian planet and they need to Coalition to come by to sweep in the civilians.”

Matt stood up quickly. “We’ll be on our way, N7." He nodded at her and turned his head to the door.  "Kal, get ready. We’re about to go on your first rescue mission.” He turned back to the radio to alert the higher-ups of the rebels.

“Got it.” Lotor stood up.  They ran into their rooms and grabbed supplies and hurried together with Matt leading the way back into the cockpit of his ship. Lotor watched the rebels clear the way for the rebel ships to take off from within the lanes, one of them raising light sticks up and throwing them down for Matt and the other pilots to take off and shoot straight into the atmosphere in mere doboshes. They landed on the war-torn planet after a few vargas, watching beams of violet light shoot back and forth from the skeletons of cities before them. The rebel ships stationed outside the cities, where Matt and the crew followed near the crumbling brick walls and tattered flags of the fallen villages. Enemy fire was above them as Lotor pulled the hood over his head deeper and gripped on his sword ready to attack. Matt held his staff tightly and N7 aimed her rifle for any enemies about to launch an attack at them.

“The druids are fighting against the Blade of Marmora ever since another power vacuum existed in the Galran Empire.” She leaned against the wall, speaking to Kal as she looked over for any nearby druids. “Under the new emperor, he sided with the Voltron Coalition and exchanged their networks with the Blades, giving away all of their identities during that reign. But since the emperor fell---” She fired a series of laser bullets. “We have to deal with this mess.” She ran forward with Matt following after her.

“Stay back, Kal!” Matt turned his head back at him. “We have to get the other civilians back to safety!” But before he could speak any further, he turned back to see that the druid threw a bomb toward the three, causing Matt to pull N7 out of the way.

But the explosion caused the ground they stood on to fall all at once.

The ground caved into a large gaping hole where they all fell into the abyss. Deeper and deeper they drifted away from the sounds of their comrades fighting for their lives as well as the Blades against the numerous druids surging through the streets. The fall would have to be about several hundred feet, where Matt fired a parachute on his back to and grab his teammate’s hands to avoid crashing at the bottom. Lotor looked up to see the streams of dirt falling from the tiny hole of light above them all.

“We’re _screwed_.” Matt looked up in horror.

“Perhaps not…” N7 pointed toward an underground city from the ledge that they were sitting on. The three looked down to see any exits, climbing down the wall of the cliff to the small mining town that they were in. “These people must have designed them years ago. There might be civilians hidden all the way down here.”

“As well as druids. That one attacked us to be stuck in here. They probably did the same with the rest of the rebels too.” Matt grimaced at the hollow pueblos in the large cavern, wary at the probability that any of the people may have survived. “I _hope_ that there are others still here.”

“Should we find a place to hide for the time being?” He suggested.

“Maybe, for now, Kal.” Matt agreed with him. “We’ll have to come up with a plan and I worried about the strength of the radios from this depth from the surface.” They walked into one of the tunnels leading out from the underground mining city and continued along the path until they found glowing crystals with a pool of water flowing from a small stream. “Let’s wait out here for now.” He set down his supplies and N7 helped him out with the radios. “Kal, can you get the fire ready?”

“Certainly.” He nodded and pulled out a lighter and couple of pieces of charcoal and wood, sparking a flame to get the campfire started. “How long do you think we’ll be out here?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” Matt replied. If I can create a signal to guide us out from this cave network to the surface, then we can meet up with the others by that time.”

“Best that we keep our guard up as well.” He replied through the wooden mask.

“Will do. I’ll see if I can get a communication line in the few minutes we’re here.” Matt looked at the devices confidently.

Nothing was working in the few hours he spent time on them. “Damn it.” He put down the radio next to him as the fire crackled.

“Let’s take a break for now.” N7 put her hand on his shoulder as Matt threw his head down to sigh.

Lotor looked over them and walked over to the radios that Matt had. He wanted to help them find a way to get out of here soon before any enemies find them hidden within the caves. “I suppose that dire situations call for some desperate measures…”He looked up at one of the crystals, feeling his hand across the surface as it suddenly shifted its color from bright teal to a rosier violet. “ _What the_ …?”

“ _Whoa, Kal!_ ” Matt jumped up in surprise. “Can you connect with the crystals like the _Balmerans_? Not a lot of people know that technique.”

“If you can connect with them, then perhaps you can see through a way to get out the caves by the crystals’ connection with each other,” N7 replied in awe. “What _exactly_ are you, if I may ask, Kal?”

“Oh, that’s…” He lifted his hand off. “I…am sort of mix, you see.”

N7 lowered her head. “I understand... Just so that there’s nothing I’m hiding from you, I’m actually half-Galran.” Lotor jolted his head up at her. "It's not much I could gain talent from my lineage but I wanted to make my own mark as my own." 

“ _What._ ” Matt looked at her. “I didn’t know. All this time since I met up with you when I decided to join a year ago. Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“I had to wear a helmet to hide my identity. Anyone would recognize the eyes of Galra, Matt. I joined the rebels because I wanted to help them out. Not out of spite against my Galran lineage but because I wanted to prove that we can change as well. I hoped to change that representation others had seen at us.” She lifted her helmet off to reveal short red-violet hair, a lovely lavender complexion, and golden eyes with emerald pupils. “I consider you two as my comrades and if anything should happen to me, I thought I let you two know.”

Matt gaped at her as Lotor lifted his chin to close his mouth. Matt’s face blushed into rosy red. “ _Ab-ab-absolutely! I can never imagine anything happening to you! I think you’re a wonderful person! You’re so beautiful and I---_!” He smacked his lips when he realized he pulled out the finger gun, slapping the side of his face with his hand immediately. He turned around and bent down to the radios again. “ _I…think I have enough energy to tweak them again.._.”

Lotor chuckled behind his mask and decided to touch the crystals again. He felt a familiar feeling when the energy began to course through his fingers. “Maybe you won’t have to, after all, Matt.” Causing the flustered boy to look up at his taller companion. “She’s right.” He closed his eyes to concentrate on the crystals’ emanating energy. “They are leading up to somewhere above us.” Soon, he began to see the streams of energy flowing through the impenetrable earth to the surface. He darted his eyes to the right and started walking toward in the direction of a tunnel. “Let’s get out of here and move. There’s something peculiar from this stretch of the distance we’re going to endeavor in.” Matt and N7 grabbed their supplies, with her kicking some dirt over the fire to put it out and followed their hooded friend through the path with crystals continuing to light their path.

He couldn’t quite understand why he was able to understand the crystals’ energy. It was almost innate and natural to him. Something ancient and something all so familiar to him that it seemed that it had passed onto him finally after all these years. He wanted to understand but he also wanted to learn why it started happening now. It had an _alchemic_ feeling. He turned his head around warily at Matt and N7, who just put her mask on. Should he tell them…? He felt afraid if they knew who he was and how his absence as the emperor caused them to be in this dire position. He had to make it up to them by following this long arduous path of freedom, as they climbed over boulders and perilous cliffs to reach the surface. It seemed to be hours or less, but at this point, he wasn’t sure. But soon they stopped at another hidden mining town, much smaller than the one they found before. He took a few steps at the ledge they were at and realized that there was a small hooded figure.

It turned its face at him. He stepped back and recognized the druid mask they were wearing. “No! Turn back! Turn back!” He yelled at Matt and N7 but soon the druid appeared in between them and kicked him off the ledge fearsomely. Grunting in pain as he reached the bottom, Lotor looked up above him to see Matt and N7 fend the druid off with their weapons and soon it appeared again in front of his mask.

With his eyes wide, Lotor tried to kick the druid out of his way as it disappeared quickly. He got up on his feet and started running after it with his sword in his hand and began to hear echoes back and forth from the hollow streets. “ _Show yourself_! Do you dare be a coward now? Or are you _willing to fight_? You won't be a wandering ghost forever when I'm through with you!” He yelled out in the intersection of the streets. The lanterns fluttered by a soft breeze, turning his attention toward the direction. The wooden doors rattled, causing him to sweat on the side of his neck, lifting his sword to reach his attack. "SHOW YOURSELF!" He hated waiting at the suspense clinging onto him, as if an awful familiar memory arose in his mind to remind him of who the druids were...they served her...they served that awful woman... _the witch_.

"Haggar will cease to exist like you, druid!" He yelled further in the direction of his sword.

He felt a hand on his shoulder so light yet claws dug in.

_Don’t speak such lies, Lotor…_

A chill shot through his spine as the forceful whip of a tail sent him crushed against a wall, breaking instantly as he laid on the rubble to soon lift his head up in horror as the druid unveiled herself. A whisper left his lips as it echoed out cruelly through the cavern grave town. “ _Narti._ ”


	7. Refuge

Ochre dust settled across the fallen bricks of a wall that once stood. Violet streaks of magic carried around his former general as she curled up her fingers to gather the dark power into a concentrated orb of energy. By instinct, he leaped away as soon as she tossed the ball to decimate further of the structure of what appeared to be a house in half.  Lotor gazed at the graven streaks across the earth, turning his head toward Narti’s position and hoisted his sword as he ran. He snuck between the alleyways of the underground mining town as more explosions carried in his trail. Quickly, he hid behind a shed appended on the side of a building, shuffling inside the brittle wooden structure. A radio latched on the side of his waist buzzed thrice. He pulled it out, extended the antenna, and dialed the frequency.

“Matt, is that you?” Another explosion blew up nearby. “ _Can you hear me_?”

“Kal! Where are you?” Matt’s voice fuzzed out in the audio. “N7 is with me and we’re coming over to where the blasts are happening.”

“ _No!_ Don’t come after me!” He urged them, turning his head cautiously to see where Narti is.

“What! Why? What’s going on out there?”

“I’ll explain later! I’m going to find a place to hide.” He pushed the antenna down and proceeded to sneak deeper into a corridor, spotting a structure with a huge sign written at the top saying “BAR” in an alien language he quickly recognized. _Perhaps, he could hide in there for now._ He sprinted into the building, pushing the wooden panels for the doors, and stepped into an old-fashioned lobby with the bar on the left and a group of tables on the right, along with an array of miniature green alabaster lamps spread across the ceiling. He hid behind the countertop, adjusting his radio now that he found some refuge at the moment. “Matt! Can you hear me now?”

“A little bit. I just hope those radios can last long enough or transmit a strong enough signal while we’re all the way down here. Why is that druid targeting you anyway?” Lotor could hear them walking in the audio.

“It’s a _long_ story.” _That’s strange._ There have been no explosions for the past couple of minutes. Sweat began to trail past his neck. Out of realization _,_ his eyes widen as he heard scuffling across the floorboards. _Couldn’t she cloak herself invisibly?_

The entire countertop was ripped out its wooden foundation. Lotor looked up in horror and quickly grabbed a couple of booze bottles to throw at her as a distraction but crashed against the walls when she shifted her position like a quivering shadow. Her tail wrapped itself around his neck to pull his entire body up. Squinting his eyes as he tried to grab on the tail with his hands.

“ _H-how…Ugh!_ ” Pain crept around his neck as the grip tightened. “ _N-Narti…please--!_ ” A shock ran throughout his entire body in mauve lightning, letting Narti drop Lotor fall face first to the ground. His fingers felt weak and stared at the sword from his fingers and soon felt claws grip around the collar of his cloak to bring his weakened body near her face.

_You left me to die. Your dream will peace will die too._

“No…that’s not true!” His voice cracked. “Y-you were possessed by Haggar! I should have realized that information was leaked _because_ she took _control of you_ …Please _!_ ” He rose his hand weakly. “Narti, _I beg of you! Please understand!_ ”

_Does the memory haunt you? Or does the day you were silent haunt you more?_

“W-when I was silent?” One of his eyebrows twitched in the coiling pain.

_Do you not remember, at all?_

His eyes grew wide. “ _What_ are you talking about?”

_What is the value of life mean to you, AT ALL..!_

Electricity flowed through her fingers in her left hand and slammed them across his face.

_I will force you to remember of your sin, you coward!_

He screamed in utter agony, erupting through the darkened paths of the empty streets and hollowed houses, of burning lanterns for forgotten ghosts, where memories of pain seeped through his veins, and marks of blood glowing fiercely bright across his cheeks. The two rebels looked up in fear, in such at the thought that their friend was tortured by a minion delivered by a certain witch of the Galran Empire. They ran quickly to the direction of the cries and quickly found the broken down and shoddy place of a saloon where their comrade could be. They broke down the door and heard silence, looking at a body lain across the wooden ground with a broken glass of booze bottles spread around him. His sword was near Matt’s feet, causing him to lift up the blade and watch the bandages around the hilt fall like silk to the ground, revealing the familiar Galran violet glow at the tip and base of it. He knitted his eyebrows together where N7 held their companion’s head on her lap as she cradled his head, where he slowly began to wake up.

But the mask was off of his face.

Matt’s eyes met with the man whose red marks burned on his face, whose pure snowy hair dripped from his scalp, and eyes opening to reveal the golden-indigo of a former dawn emperor. He dropped the king’s sword to the wooden floorboards and quickly pulled out his weapon at him, pointing the tip of the staff at his face. “N7, GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

“What are saying? He’s hurt!” She pleaded.

“ _Don’t you know who he is?_ That bastard is _Lotor_ himself!” He gritted his teeth.

 “That’s impossible! No one has seen him since the Voltron disappeared from the explosion that happened from their duel. Why would _he_ be here helping the rebels?”

“ _He took away my sister!_ Pidge is gone because of him!” He pulled up his collar but N7 quickly stopped him by grabbing the sides of his arms to push him away from the wounded emperor. “ _Let me go!_ He murdered my sister and the _rest of the paladins of Voltron!_ This bastard’s absence is the reason why there’s a power vacuum in the first place, N7!” He jolted around to push N7 away but she kept her ground. “ _Why won’t you move?_ ”

She kept silent.

“ _Let me go…!_ ” Tears flowed past his cheeks as his teeth clenched.

“And then what? Run and kill the man out of revenge made of hate and grief for your sister? You really think that if we continued this _cycle_ of committing murder left and right just because they wronged you for the pain you can’t erase? Let him speak for himself. If he really is a murderer, then give him some due process! You expect to win if you always go your way!” She shouted at him. “He’s already about to die if you decide to take away his life like this!”

 Matt stopped moving around. His chest grew less of harsh breathing and grew weak in her grip on him. “Alright, then.” He spoke bitterly and stepped back as N7 held his hand to comfort him as the both of them to look at Lotor’s weakened state. “Let’s set up a signal out here. We’ll need back up soon since we’re higher in elevation now. I’ll contact any Blades to let them know we’re here.”

“And of Lotor?”

“Probably. I’m not sure what we’ll do with him at that time.” He wiped away his tears on his sleeve and sniffed, but kept glaring at Lotor as he groaned in pain silently.

Sounds echoed out outside of the bar, where Matt walked forward to peer out the window to see groups of people being carried off by druids to a tunnel at the end of town. They turned out to be the inhabitants of the planet, as civilians were wearing glowing shackles around their wrists and shoved into carts where they were carried off in the railways of the large tunnel.

“This is bad…real bad. We’re the only two rebels here and there’s no way of getting a proper signal quickly to tell the others of where the druids are taking them to!” Matt’s hands fell into fists. “ _Shit_ , how the actual _fuck_ are we gonna flip this situation around?”

 _How did she know…?_ Lotor’s thoughts ran as the sounds of the people softly murmured and cried as they were carried off into the tunnel of an unknown fate them all. _How did she know that I would be here…?_ He turned up his eyes to look at the small lamps fixed at the ceiling and noticed something emitting light from where the bulbs would be. His eyes widened as soon as he realized what was happening.

The bulbs were made out of bioluminescent crystals. The same kind from the caves that he connected with earlier. “Q-quint-essence...” He coughed out. She tracked his quintessence from the crystals he connected with from that time. _That’s how she found him._

“What?” Matt looked down at him.

Lotor weakly pointed his finger at the lamps, causing Matt to slowly turn his head at the lamps with the crystals. “You… need them.” He spoke more weakly and coughed again.

“I don’t understand.” He narrowed his eyes at them.

“ _Radio…_ ” He coarsely spoke out. N7 quickly propped up his back against the base of the counter. Matt raised his eyebrows as soon as he realized what Lotor was trying to tell him.

“Let me see if I can get some water from the back.” She got up and walked over to the back hallway in the already damaged bar room.

Matt walked up closer and stepped onto a table to pull them out from the ceiling. It radiated softly in his hand and as he stepped off to bring it to Lotor, as the light began to grow stronger. Lotor winced in pain as the crystal’s radiance grew, causing the red marks streaking past his cheeks at the edges of his lips to resonate with it. Watching the small gem illuminate before him, Lotor slowly began to drift off into sleep.

========================================================================

“Sir, you really think that this is going to work?” Zethrid asked as Lotor walking confidently in the front of the other generals at a small porch overseeing a large facility producing parts of ships. Sentries carried materials in cargo pods left and forth in the assembly lines. Medical doctors strolled pilots down and right by the ships they were to drive. Checking their vitals on the screens of the dashboard inside each and every cockpit of the ship, the pilots shifted their gears and extended the wings to prepare for take-off.

“Oh, I’m quite sure of it. Everything should be according to the referendums and diagrams they reviewed in their orientations beforehand. He smiled at them below him, giving a wave at one of them. “Even mastering the simulations as well, despite the lack of distance they have. The operation will undoubtedly go down as history’s greatest endeavors for this kind of pilots. They will bring forth the future generations’ prosperity and peace as well.”

“The systems are ready to follow the program’s guidelines, sir,” Acxa replied at she checked the information displayed in the holograms above her wrist.

“Begin the ports for the docking stations ready for their return. I am quite proud of each and every one of them being able to partake such an honor.” He smiled as he walked away from the view.

“When are you gonna tell us of who these special pilots you found anyway?” Ezor leaned as Lotor walked away chuckling.

He waved his hand. “They are a special brand, you see.”

“I guess the Prince can really find his own court. Looks like he really will be the future emperor after all. ” Ezor giggled, looking over to Narti who nodded as Kova sat on her shoulder licking his paw.

Kova’s ears twitched and looked up to the direction of a pilot screaming. Lotor stopped in his tracks and turned around, running and gripping the rails of the balcony to the sight of more and more pilots strapped onto bed carried away by Galran doctors immediately. 

“Sir…” Acxa watched in horror.

“Give me the status update of the pilots.” His voice was hard and his claws gripped on the bar of the rails.

A 3-D graph was pulled up from her wrist as Acxa expanded its size to show the real-time data of each of the pilots and down to the parts of the ships highlighted in red and warning signs. “Their vitals are collapsing on themselves. They cannot sustain their bodies like this if it continues.”

“Keep them in immediate care until a better method is found. We cannot lose this chance.” He commanded.

“What if they lose their lives?” Ezor looked concerned.

“We cannot afford that risk, by any means necessary.” He clenched his teeth. “I will not allow it. I will not watch them all die again.”

A vase of flowers stood on a small table before him in a dark room. Lovely gossamer-like petals pouring out its pink beauty with the golden trident pistil in the center highlighted the beauty of these juniberry blossoms. All bunched together by a single scarlet ribbon within the glass vase. What a shame that he slammed it across the ground in violent rage. His frustration dissipated as he watched in horror of the damage he committed. Glass pieces everywhere in millions and Lotor dropping to his knees as he held one the individual ones in his hands, caressing the limp green stems and dripping leaves of it. Gripping the flower and holding it deep into the bosom of his chest as he quaked in pain. He looked up to see a figure dressed like a dead flower before him, with her hood over her head and the edges of her cloak seeping across the ground.

“You are still a foolish child, Lotor…” She let out a cruel and horrible laugh at him, allowing the darkness to surround him like water, juniberries decaying in the dark violent energy absorbing them all.  “To obtain peace is by war. To end war is to remove _life_. Taking lives is how one survives in life, after all...” She stood above him as he began to drown, reaching his hand out for help as he cried in fear. “ _It is ‘victory or death’, for a reason_.” Her golden eyes glimmered as his and her red marks shone brightly.

============================================================================

Coughing suddenly, Lotor looked up to an unfamiliar ceiling and laying on a bed, where a lamp lit by a flame on a desk nearby. He realized that N7 wasn’t wearing her helmet this time but the light of the flame accented her lavender complexion, burgundy bobbed hair, sharp nose, and soft emerald eyes. But they became narrow as soon as she turned her attention at him. He wasn’t quite sure of what to do since the cat was out of the bag now. Knowing that N7 was half-Galran like him was one thing, but being the one who supposed to bring stability and end to this war was another matter entirely. He looked away, ashamed at himself for being this inadequate and angry that he wasn’t able to do anything at all either. Matt was near him on the table with radio equipment setup, tuning the dials once more and resting his fists on the wooden surface. He turned his head to find Lotor awake.

“I suppose _sleeping beauty_ is awake.” He spoke bitterly at him. Fiddling with the small crystal in his hand, he continued. “Know a way of how to get out this shit show?” He held it tight between his two fingers for Lotor to see.

“How long have I been out?”

“Just a few hours now. But we can’t wait any longer.” He set down the crystal hard on the table. “You’re gonna have to fix this whole situation considering you’re Lotor himself. Remember that time you blasted a huge-ass beam through the gigantic Galran cruiser?  _Do something like that_.” He pointed at him. “It’s because of that unselfish act that my friend Keith lived instead of committing suicide by crashing into that ship to save all of us. But you became selfish to remove both him and Pidge out of the picture.” He clenched his teeth.

“Matt, please...” N7 called out to him softly.

“It’s okay. At least I know how to cool down faster than he did fighting them.” He folded his arms and turned his head away from him.

Lotor looked at him and let his face fell, turning his attention to the claws hidden behind the gloves of his gear. “It’s understandable if you cannot forgive me for what I may have done.” He lifted his eyes softly to Matt. “When you’re about to lose something precious in the midst of war, we all know how we tend to go by our heart than by wisdom. I was selfish, I admit that. Your pain, I understand that. And you not understanding me is fine as well.” He folded his fingers together. “I’m sorry for causing you this heartache, Matt.”

Silence fell through the room until Matt broke it.

“Just when we got my dad back, back then we could have taken away your life just so I can reunite with my family again.” He peered out to the horizon of the ghostly town, peeking from a window covered by the curtains tightly as he stuck his finger in between the linens to see. “I remember going inside of the prison you were in control of where you held my dad as your inmate this whole time. That cell…whatever I saw in there, I knew you couldn’t possibly be allowed to live. But the bargain between Zarkon trading my dad’s life for yours was far too risky. How would I know to trust you since Zarkon double-crossed us that time?” He leaned back on his chair. “Are you just like your dad, then?” He glared at the window.

 _You’re more like Zarkon then I could_ ever _imagine!_

The faint memory of the voice of the woman he grew deep admiration with lifted into his mind and soon he felt a choking pain inside of his throat. It began to burn and soon he clutched onto the sheets of the bed tightly. “I…am not Zarkon. I never was and could never be. What must it take to prove _who I am_ to you all?” A tear streaked past his cheek as N7 watched in the distance in surprise.

Matt swiveled around in his chair and tossed the crystal square at Lotor’s chest. It fell on top of the sheet in between both of Lotor’s hands clenching onto the white linens. “Atone for it. Show me that you really are a king than an emperor. Show me that you can use your intellect to produce _good_ than just the sake for peace. Stop contradicting yourself and trying to be the smartass at all of this and be humble _instead_. My father knew how to and he taught this to both me and Pidge.” He rested both of his fists on top of his knees. “If you really care about the value of a life, then let’s start with the ones outside of this cage right here.” He turned his chin fiercely at the window.

Lotor gazed at Matt in awe. Holding the small seagreen crystal in between his hands, Lotor looked up at N7 with a determined look in eyes. “Is there any parchment and a pen in this place?” He stepped out of bed slowly.

“You sure you can stand up alright?” She watched him worryingly.

“I’m sure that I will be fine.” He smiled and walked by her to the door to the hallway and came back into the room after a couple of minutes. He set down the large beige paper on the table next to Matt and gripped on the pen in his left hand and the crystal in his right.

“What are you going to do?” Matt looked up at Lotor who towered him and gazed at the sight beyond the window. Lotor gave a small grin.

 “ _Alchemy._ ” He breathed.

Images spread across the surface of the paper in seconds at the pen traveled across space. His eyes closed as the crystal grew in vibrant light and his marks shining brightly as his hand leaving the ink spots precisely and fluidly in the parchment.  Like marking the pillions of stars in the galaxies, details overlay the isometric view of their current location, to the hundreds of meters below the surface and all the way to the top. The map grew as it revealed the constructions of the towns and their channels in stacked layers. Even tiny notes were placed near certain spots of the mining structures beneath the ground as well. Matt and N7 gaped at the sheer density of detail across the isometric rendering that Lotor created.  A roadmap to help them carry out a rescue operation.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick thing to let you all know: 
> 
> I'm starting my semester next week so the work will be updated with a new chapter each week. I have an entire outline of how the story will go so that everything will be according to schedule. I'm thinking of releasing a new chapter every Monday up until May. I worry about the pacing of the story so I'll take into extra care about each release too. Also, Lotor still has some amnesia. Everything you see is what Lotor is able to remember too so there's more for him to discover later. I'm really excited to tell these future scenes too :)


	8. Jaded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the wait! College is stretching my soul thin wahhh~

“… _Why didn’t you tell us before?_ ” Her voice soft yet filled with wonder directed the cloaked man to turn around at N7.  How could anyone not ask the same question to Lotor, like an echo carrying throughout the tunnels of the caverns with Matt guiding the way for them. 

A snapping flicker, a match scrapped across Matt's vambrace and lit the torch in his hand in the midst of the darkness. He grimaced behind them and let the emotion melt away at the sight of her worried velvet eyes. The question still echoed in the small crevices in his mind. Drips of water carried on the sides of the walls as the trio navigated their way through the hollow corridors of the caves. 

A contained voice knocked through the wooden layer of Lotor's mask. “The same reason why I couldn’t say I am also like you, N7.” He replied with a soft chuckle vibrating outside it. 

Matt squinted, subtly glaring at him. “N7 isn’t her full name, you know.” He spoke flatly. 

Lotor side-glanced at Matt who led the way but N7 waved her hand to dismiss Matt's remark. 

“Just a small nickname, you see." She chuckled to make things less awkward between the two. "It's just something that the crew had for me. It’s from Matt’s favorite games when he was on Earth.” She gave a warm smile for Matt.

Matt's cheeks slowly became warm and slowly turned his head around to promptly walk forward. 

Lotor turned his head away from staring at Matt. “Then, what is your name?” He tilted his head up at her curiously. 

She looked away to the adjacent edge of the path, where a large crevice below them hundreds of meters deep. “ _Nzelyae_.” She replied softly and looked back at Lotor again. “It can be a little bit hard to pronounce... but I assure you that the meaning of it is honorable on my mother’s side.”

“I see...” Lotor shifted his attention at the end of the corridor where Matt was, where he walked forward with the light, illuminating the crystals plastered across the walls as they kept traversing.

“The inhabitants are known to draw their source of energy through these crystals,” Lotor explained to them. “However, when contacting these ley lines, others can also tap in as well to eavesdrop too. I have a strong feeling the druids are aware of this method as well. I may have a tiny connection with the crystal I had in the sea of information flowing through these walls, but there’s bound to be someone on the lookout for abnormal connection.”

“A druid’s gonna be looking for us, huh,” Matt replied. 

“The same one as before,” Lotor spoke with a bit of remorse. If they ever cross paths again, he already felt fear trembling down his spine.

_\-----_

“Over here!” N7 pointed to the speck of light at the end of the corridor. They ran after it and stood before a wall with the ray of light piercing through the ceiling a few inches above them. “Stand back.” She pushed through the both of them and pulled out her rifle to shoot at the roof, creating a large gaping hole as sand poured through. They climbed up the rocks like a staircase and finally found the surface covering in golden moonlight across the vast desert. The village attacked a day ago still stood as rebels lined around creating small campfires as they noticed the trio walking forward to them. Lotor pulled up his hood and placed the mask on his face, catching N7’s attention who sheepishly put her helmet on as well. Matt looked at her from behind and turned his head away sadly.

“Where have you guys been?” One of the rebels met up with them.

“We fell through a sinkhole,” Lotor explained through the mask, however, Matt pushed him aside to speak with the rebel instead.

“Where’s Kolivan? ” Matt replied.

“He’s deeper inside of the town right now. You’ll need a Blade agent to guide you all though.” The rebel turned his head to look for any of them walking by. “ _Oh!_ Good, there’s one grabbing some info from another one of our pals right now. I’ll go up to ask her quick!” He scurried off.

“Why do you need to see Kolivan?” N7 asked beside him.

“We need to tell him about the victims being held up by the other druids deep below the surface.” He whispered. “ _We have to act fast_.”

Lotor turned his head away from their conversation and back at the Blade agent walking up to them. “Follow me.” The agent said.

Deeper through the carved out city that used to be filled with the inhabitants resided before, they found themselves at the base of a building where they found a small iron-wrought gate at the base of small pueblo house. The agent pried the door ajar and found the other Blades crowded around a wooden table under a flickering lamp. A shadow smeared across the commander’s face by the small flame, his eyes intense in examining the large wrinkled canvas of a map they had and placing marks on certain stations of underground mines with a piece of charcoal. Kolivan lifted his eyes from the map and toward Matt and the others standing at the doorway.

“What brings your lot here?” He inquired them.

“A bigger perspective.” Matt pulled out the map Lotor made in his backpack and placed it on the table. “There are civilians held by the druids underneath the tunnels of where we came from. If anything, this would be of some use for you all.”

Kolivan took the map from Matt’s hand and scrutinized his eyes at the piece, handing it over to another Blade next to him without looking inside of it. “Where did you get this information after all? I know you are rebels but how can I trust with this piece of intel you gave us?”

The Blade holding the map uncurled it to reveal the intricate blueprints, causing others to pull in to examine the workmanship. “That’s some good detail right there, fella.”

“Detail is one thing. A plan is another and more profitable than this.” Kolivan replied. “I can’t risk my agents to walk into a nest with a blizzard of hornets like this.”

“Why?” N7 walked forward. “You have the best information available to land an attack towards the druids.”

“And what is the use of having this information of what the underworld would like except the path of how to destroy the demons inside of it?” Kolivan stood firm.

“How to destroy a druid…” Lotor felt a pain in his throat.

“We have luxite blades to destroy their compositions but the issue is the surmounting power they have in their magic and well as their advantage in the underground environment.

N7 turned her head at Lotor, with concern hidden behind her mask.

“You need an alchemist to fight them back,” Matt spoke up, surprising both of them. “It’s not much since we only got one.”

“Negative,” Kolivan replied shaking his head. “We need several of them. Hundreds, even.”

Lotor turned his head down to the table and looked meekly to where his small crystal hidden within his fist. He lifted his chin to catch Kolivan’s attention.

“What you need is a _guide_ to lead you into the hornet’s nest,” Lotor spoke behind his crimson mask.

Matt glanced at the red hood Lotor donned as he walked to the table with the map and strategy pieces. Like a game of chess, he delicately lifted one of the pieces and placed it in the center of the map. “I can be your bishop to assist you in the operation to destroy them.”

“How would you know?” Kolivan questioned the cloaked figure under the flame lamp.

“I understand of how they operate. I will even tell you that there are even _hundreds_ of ways to destroy them other than luxite blades.” Lotor bit his lip.

Now he got all of the Blades full attention on him with even Kolivan narrowing his eyes at him. “You dare offend my men and me?”

“On the contrary, I mean no offense at all.”

Matt pressed his palm on the table. “ _What he means is---_ ” He glared at Lotor and back to Kolivan.  “--is that we have communication pathways structured all throughout _hundreds_ of these ley lines underground. The locals used these crystal streaks across the layers beneath us to send signals to the others to build the mines to harness the crystals’ energy for their infrastructure.”

“And that he act as an operator to guide a path made from these hundreds of connections.” N7 spoke up behind Matt and Lotor.  “Kolivan, if you allow our friend Kal to be your guide, he has the means of entering through the caves at will. _He’s_ the one who made that map.” She promptly stated before the chief.

Kolivan kept silent as he gazed at the three of them. “You all better tell me as to why you have an alchemist with you in the first place.”

“He’s just a---“ Matt spoke up quickly but Lotor lifted his hand to halt him.

“My…race died out because of the introduction of dark arts that the druids used from the witch. If anything, I can provide you more than a map just by using me as your resource.” He placed his hand on his chest. “ _Use me_. Allow me to be your foot soldier to make that first step towards victory.”

“Even if it means that it’s improbable?” Kolivan retorted.

“Even if it means _I lose my life_ , I gave you _a chance_ toward winning no matter how small my efforts made be.”

“If you were the _king_ in this game of chess, you better appear in last second for that promised victory.” Kolivan walked forward and grabbed the map from one of his agents. “I need a moment to speak with my crew.”

Matt, N7, and Lotor stepped outside of the quarters as a tarp fell down the doorway to shut behind them. Whispers of the rolling desert night curled up like will-o-wisps as stark silence laid between the three of them. Wrapping her palm around her wrist and turning her chin up to Matt and Lotor, N7 looked to the side and up to the three moons in limelight above them. Shuffling his feet while keeping watch on the rest of the Blades’ chatter flickering like crickets within the tattered place of once was a household a while ago, Matt squinted his eyes in a slight memory of his sister running around the front porch of their home on Earth millions, millions, and millions miles away from where they all stood in the war zone. Lotor kept his gaze on the dusty flecks of the red sands and mustard rocks, examining the details on the torn down brick walls and fluttering shredded cloths wrapped loosely around each wall. The mutterings within the hideout mellowed down until a final word was uttered to break the silence.

“Kal.” Kolivan lifted the tarp above his head and walked forward to Lotor. “Follow me. You two come along as well. I’m taking two other men with me to a discrete location that my agents spotted a few days ago. For now, I need Kal to use his ability until that time.” He turned his head at Matt. “Radios, right? Good. I need you to set up a network with this.” He gave him a broken mask fit for a Blade agent. “There are coordinates embedded within the circuit board of my fallen one’s mask. I need you to track down that history in honor of them. Whatever they found, they found a weakness in the druid’s nest.”

Matt gulped as he held the mask in his fingers, feeling the melting edges of the bridge of the nose to the chin, for the mask was scarred split in half that way. “A…absolutely.” He spoke solemnly and clenched his teeth.

“And you.” Kolivan looked at N7 as she looked at him warily but dropped her composure as he gave her a luxite bayonet rifle. “Also a memento from my agent for you. It seemed to have _reacted_ with you for some reason. I trust you keep that reason _for a good use_.” He stepped away and walked in front of Lotor.

“Who are you really?” The chief stared down at him for he was a few inches above his height.

Sweat beaded across Lotor’s neck. “Must I ask you the same for the identities of your agents as well?” He retorted somewhat quickly.

“At least I know who my men are before they die. For now on in this mission, _you all_ are under my jurisdiction. I have the right to know.” Kolivan kept his position.

“ _Kal, wait—!”_ Matt spoke up but Lotor lifted his hand to stop him again.

“You are correct.” He bit his lip behind his mask. “I will show you before we enter into their inferno.”

“Very well then.” Kolivan turned away from him and walked with his agents. “Let’s move.” Each of the Blades followed out with him in the hollowed-out streets, with each of the soldiers skipping out from the shadows and joining with Kolivan. He stopped in the middle of the road and turned his attention where Matt, N7, and Lotor where. “Don’t be idle. Be pragmatic, you lot.” He lifted his finger and pointed at Lotor. “You’re coming with me.” Lotor stood up firm and promptly followed after Kolivan as he pointed again to Matt and N7. “And you two need to make sure to protect our only source of intel as well.” Kolivan

“ _Yes, sir!_ ” They spoke in union.

One of the blades pulled out a tarp covering a large battered hovercraft, with Kolivan jumping into the pilot’s seat in the cockpit as his squad including the trio sat within the back of the ship. Taking off in a shot of gusty light and jet fuel, Kolivan grabbed on the controls with his rough palms and gripped them to his chest to zip through the lime desert night to a series of mountain ranges far ahead of the tattered village they once were at.  Guiding the hovercraft near the base of a valley, Kolivan clicked on the controls to rest the vehicle and stood up from his seat to walk across the thick metallic floor to send light stomps throughout the ship. “Move out. Give me survey info around the parameters of the area. Report to me immediately of any abnormalities you spot and act quickly.” He commanded the Blades as they ran out the doors and dissipated into the desert sands within his gaze. “You three stay here. I need to inform you all of the strategy we have.” He sat down on one of the cargo boxes in the ship and waited to speak until he was sure no agents were around. “Now. Tell me now before I move forward from this spot.” He folded his hands together as his elbows rested on his knees.

“Yes.” Lotor stepped forward and sat down on another cargo box in front of Kolivan and pulled the hood off his head and slowly removed his mask.

Kolivan blinked as he dropped his composure, letting the palms of his hands clap on top of his knees to grip himself. “ _That’s why your voice sounded so familiar_.” He leaned forward to examine the details of the elongated red marks stretching from Lotor’s cheeks from through the edges of his lips. “The bastard son of the tyrannical Zarkon turns out to be _alive_ this whole time.” He gave out a quick rough, bitter laugh. “Tell me because here have you been this whole time, _emperor_?”

“I ask the same myself.” Lotor smiled grimly.

“From _an emperor_ of the Galran Empire to a _foot soldier_ of my crew? You were always so strange.” Kolivan sighed. “What brings you here on this part with these rebels?”

“I have no obligations since my rule was pretty much shattered so I do what can here on this planet for now.” He folded his right leg over his left knee.

“You’re just casually playing _hooky_ while the rest of the universe is going to _shit_ right now?” Kolivan narrowed his eyes at him.

“I guess I’ll die like a regular soldier in this war.” He chuckled bitterly but it fell into a frown filled with concern. “I have places to go, however. I may not be the emperor anytime soon but I need to find certain individuals that can help stop this war. I lived long enough to give some wisdom of trying to mitigate my father’s mistakes but being his son, I knew the choices I had to make as soon as I drew my sword at him.” He lifted his eyes up to Kolivan. “I am unforgivable. I must atone my sins otherwise I would end up like my father when he missed his chance. ” He turned his gaze down to the metal ground. “Abandoned in some wasteland…alone and forever forgotten.”

“You never forgot your father, it seems.” Kolivan spoke up, surprising Lotor.

“I… _suppose so_.” Lotor chuckled even more than usual, to his surprise.

“You’re a lot more timid than before, too.” Kolivan stood up, towering over Lotor in the middle of the room. “Ever since that fight with Voltron, you look like you lost your sense of bravado back there. Enlisting yourself for a _suicide_ mission hidden beneath the many layers of _hell_ in a remote planet in this part of the galaxy? What kind of man are you asking to be anyway?”

“A simple one, I suppose.” He gripped on to his little gem in his hand.

“ _Are you stupid_?” Kolivan sharply declared at him. “Humility is one thing. But becoming a pathetic one is another, former emperor. You had the tactics to lead hundreds of soldiers in hundreds of ways, didn’t you? The best thing you can do is learn how to advise yourself in this maelstrom to lead some sort of path that doesn’t end up in the hundreds of millions of lives out here.” He walked to the door and turned his head back at Lotor. “Soldier, _this is war_. You were brought back from the hell you deserved because you _still regret_  not being the king **_you_** wanted to be.” He opened the door and walked out from the ship as Matt and N7 turned their heads back at Lotor who was silent in his seat. N7 nudged Matt by his elbow, although he was hesitant to approach him but then sighed.

“… _Lotor?_ ” Matt slowly walked up to him.

“ _Kolivan's right_...” Lotor spoke weakly as he clenched his teeth and curling his fingers into fists. “What more can I do? Every time I tried to lead a better future for my people, it always ended up getting destroyed. Millions… _I lost millions_ …” He lowered his head in frustration, reminiscing of a burning planet curling itself into an eternal inferno in his mind. “If my father came back from left for dead just like I did, wouldn’t that mean that my efforts would still be in vain before I return to hell again? This path I am taking…this far I am going…and I am wearing a mask just like him too before he was slain in battle?” He felt the wooden maroon mask on his face, his cheeks burning in shame. “Is this all of this _just a joke?!_ ” He squinted his eyes and gritted his teeth in the memory of Voltron destroying his ship in the wastelands of the quintessence field. 

Matt's hand fell on Lotor's shoulder.

“Don’t focus on your personal mistakes right now, Lotor.” N7 walked forward.

“We still have a mission ahead of us,” Matt spoke flatly. “Kolivan is right to point out of the things you're failing to see when you're running so far ahead of others with your mindset."

"We don't really know we’re going but…I hope that there really is some sort the end of all of this.” She spoke softly. "You have to remember of what you need to do if you really are Lotor in the end."

Matt scratched his head and sighed, turning his eyes to the dark desert valley outside. "There's never really a clear cut way to obtain rest after a battle, but perhaps you may have tried to find _thousands_ of ways to find _peace_ for all of us."

 _Peace…_ The memory of the woman he loved spoke that word to him in such a gentle and warm melody. Allura’s smile to him in the ancient planet of Oriande began to fill his heart with a golden feeling of trust. He looked up at Matt and N7 and began to find that sense of gold from them. He breathed in and exhaled, getting up on his feet and walked to the edge of the doorway of the ship with his own sword out, covered with bandages at the hilt. “The nest is a long way from the surface on this part.” He closed his eyes to remember the details of the map, opening his eyes when he found a way to navigate through the caves. “Come with me.” He jumped off the edge and landed on the sandy surface, followed by Matt and N7.

“I can wire a transmission packet from this Blade’s mask to see the images he saw before his death.” He pulled up augmented holographs from the device strapped around his wrist, swiping through the intel in the bent-up black mask. “There’s a huge amount of civilians loaded up by a couple of druids in this image. Another one displays one of the druids holding loads of quintessence with one of the civilians picked out by one the druids to perform some alchemy from the earth. Perhaps poisoning the quintessence of this planet with their own.”

“They’re trying to amplify their resources,” Lotor remarked. “The druids must be running low of quintessence since my fall and trying to use barbaric methods of using the people’s own alchemy to increase their own as well as their energy supplies too.”

“Look over there!” N7 pointed out the Blades hurrying down a tunnel at the end of one of the cliffs in the immense valley they were all in. “That entrance is must be how they’re loading the people into their nests beneath us.”

“Let’s follow them.” Matt, N7, and Lotor ran quickly through the dark valley guided by the limelight of the three moons and kept going until Lotor turned his head up at the three celestial bodies out of curiosity. He widened his eyes in realization and halted in his tracks

“Hold on! Stop what you're doing!” He yelled out to the other Blades waiting at the tunnel with Kolivan.

“What? What’s going on?” Kolivan stepped forward but was met by several appearances of druids hidden throughout the valley in disguise. Several detonations signal off between the several meters of distance separating Lotor and the others from Kolivan and the Blades. A massive gaping hole opening up with byzantine flames of sulfur throughout its circumference of the inferno as massive Galran ships lifted up from the imploded entrance made by the druids. Kolivan and the Blades stared at the rising vessels, which were even fitted with the seagreen crystals growing on the sides of each of the ships, which turned out to be the cause for their swift levitation. “Get onto those ships! We’re not letting them escape in the night like this!” Several Blades fired their jetpacks and swarmed in bunches toward the ships, with Kolivan jumping off a cliff to stab his own blade into the surface of one of the ships.

“The druids were planning to use the crystals when the three moons are full in luminosity. An ancient alchemy technique that the Alteans used long, long ago…” Lotor gazed at the gigantic rising crystalline spacecrafts. He sprinted back to Kolivan’s ship with Matt and N7 following after him and into the cockpit of the ship. “Hold on!” Flicking the switches and pulling the steering wheel to his chest, Lotor lifted up Kolivan’s cruiser off the ground and into the atmosphere in microseconds. “Matt, can you block the transmissions signals from the druid ships?” He gripped on the shaking steering wheel as the ship vibrated to each cut through the layers of the atmosphere.

“I can try. N7, I need your help!” He pulled out own black breathing mask over his face and headed to the door to unlock the latch, unleashing gusts of wind through the portal and N7 running along with him as they both jumped out from the edge and latched themselves to one of the massive ships below them.

 N7 pulled out the bayonet rifle and started firing at their ship’s latched portals with her right arm as her left arm grabbed on the side of the railings with Matt clinging along too. She jumped from the rails she was clinging onto and used both of her feet to kick a druid at the entrance of the portal, sending the druid like a bullet through pitch black space. “Hurry!” She called out for Matt as she stretched out her arm for him, pulling him inside the jade-augmented Galran ship.

Lotor watched the two shuffled inside the ship and pulled his steering wheel to the side spiral around the ship to look for Kolivan and the other Blades. Druids were taken down by the luxite blades in mere seconds, to Lotor’s surprise. He clenched on the controls in the ship, sending missiles to one of the druids’ ships, but only managed to graze one of them as they used magic to shift their own ships’ positions like shadows. _They_ ’ _re using the crystals’ power to amplify their own…_ He gritted his teeth. Suddenly he felt a loud thud thundered through the hollow vessel of Kolivan’s cruiser. Lotor turned his head and his eyes grew as Narti walked inside the ship headed towards the cockpit.  In a heartbeat, he flicked the switch to change the ship’s gears to autopilot, jumping out of his seat and pulling out his blade ready to defend himself.

“ _Narti!”_   He came closer with one foot at a time as the ship began to tilt and her tail began to slither.

 _There was no way she was going to listen to him._ _There was no way he’s going to make it on this ship if Narti attacks him. But…_ he was expecting this. He lifted the crystal up before Narti as the sounds of exploding ships, shattering crystals, clashing luxite blades, beaming rays of dark alchemy pulsated throughout the outside of the ship the two were standing inside of. The horrendous thunderstorm with hundreds of quivering druids battling against the league of Blades. An alchemist wearing a mask of crimson and a druid wearing a mask of blood-taken stood from each other by a few meters. Bending his knees to lower himself by millimeters by milliseconds, Lotor kept his full attention of Narti’s movements and especially her tail. Raising her elbows to lift her palms ever so slightly yet ever so quickly, Narti lifted her tail to throw a wooden crate towards Lotor’s direction, of which he dodged and ran past her to jump outside of the ship to freely fall through space before grabbing onto a rail on the main Galran ship. He knew that if Narti was appearing in his ship, then the leader of the druids would have been _nearby._

And he was correct. He kicked down the door by the sheer strength in his right leg, slamming the metal door through the hallway to destroy a few druids in his way, where he ran deeper and deeper into the main ship. Pulling out his sword, he grunted and hacked down more druids swiftly and kept making turns in the corridors to look for the main control room where the leader would be. Finally, he found the room that he was searching for in the labyrinth of corridors and levels in the Galran ship, kicking down the door with his left and swung the sword to the direction of where the leader was in the room. A harrowing figure towering in his long mauve robes trimmed with gold and long mask with many golden eyes glared at the hooded emperor. “ _… I have waited for you, sire._ ” He grinned cruelly.

“Macidus!” Lotor pointed his own blade at one of the witch’s longest and most faithful members of her sect of dark alchemy for the Galran Empire. He remembered how he mistreated Narti when he first met her and grimaced as he stared at the ancient druid.

“Bringing back my student? After you slew her by your sword? You have to admit this is was very fitting, wouldn’t you say?” He chuckled cruelly. “Now it's your turn.” He snapped his fingers and suddenly Narti appeared on his right-hand side. “Do me a favor and die, _you emperor of sands forgotten_. _"_


	9. Obsidian

 

Rattling throughout the air shaft of the ship, electricity of toxic violet flowed from the ancient hands of the head druid. Standing with pride in his wrinkled smile behind the bone mask of many golden eyes, Macidus gleefully cackled. It wasn't really much. Not at all for the experienced warlock. Traveling to many realms of space with the high priestess Haggar gave Macidus quite a bit of formidable power in his hands. But also frustration. Petty anger fueled the veins in his neck. The bastard son of hers was the very reason she abandoned them all.

He walked forward to the fallen emperor, now wearing new clothes of dark navy cloak and a rather red tribal mask he donned. His sword was wrapped in cloth to hide his esteemed pride, as the druid knew it was modeled after an Altean broadsword no less. Still, he knew that the boy didn't use alchemy like his mother. But he felt something strange. Familiar and ancient like her...

"You plan to use that sword to slit my throat."  Macidus spoke to him and turn his head to Narti. _He can still use her but not yet...something's wrong with the boy._ "Why is it that I sense magic from your hands, Lotor?"

He gripped his sword and pointed at Macidus, but heard him cackle like a withered organ whose notes taunted him and flickered around the room. "Do not test me. I know where you are, you servant of the witch."

"I don't serve her. But she..." Macidus' shadow appeared near Narti as he rested his clawed yet wrapped hand on her shoulder. "...serves at my command."

Lotor scowled at him. "You sicken me."

"You make me uneasy. From the moment you were a boy and even a supposed emperor of our nation, how else can I keep my hands clean of what I have done? No Galra can claim themselves as a rightful ruler and no less from someone who is half of that. Thank the witch for your disgrace." His other hand rested on her other shoulder. "And thank me for using that disgrace into something productive."

"Why did you take Narti?"

"She is still bound to me, you foolish boy. All druids are bound to the one who still connected to the river of quintessence. As I am bound to Haggar, Narti is still to me. Thus, Haggar brought her back from her state." He began to chuckle. "In other words, you can't truly kill her."

"Because you all are tainted by the witch's own quintessence to sustain your own life force." He looked at Narti with fear. _"You all made a pact with the creature from the rift."_

A single finger made of swirling black shadows pointed at Lotor and Narti charged at him like a bullet. He used his sword to shield him from the blade made of swirling electric violet magic Narti yielded in her hand. His feet slid across the room as he tried to hold back from the force and glided his sword from her energetic blade to escape. "Macidus!" He roared out but heard his cruel laughter throughout the hollow corridors out the door. Out of the corner of his eye, Narti twirled around to slam an enormous orb of energy on the side of his body, causing him to fall back on the ground. He coughed and looked up where Narti was, dodging a stabbing blade where his head was through the metal floor. Throwing his legs up, he hoisted himself up and staggered left from right as Narti zigzagged him with shots of her quintessence-fueled blade to stab him in the throat.

 _"Dammit!"_ His fangs bare and neck close to being slit. Closing his eyes, he concentrated his energy in his hands with lightning flickering in his hands and his stretched Altean marks brightening intensely. Narti dipped down to swing her hand filled with the violet storm of energy as Lotor opened his eyes to punch the orb of raging electricity to her chest.

A shriek was heard and she fell back to the ground with streams of flickering lightning arches around her body. The older druid halted, appearing out from the shadows and cruelly chuckled at Lotor. "My, my you dare hurt your fellow comrade like this after you sent her to Hades?"

"As my fellow general, I'm willing to do anything to bring her back to her senses. But I will not take away her life _again_." He declared, squinting at Narti's stunned body. Lifting the sword in his right hand and the orb of alchemic energy in his left, Lotor glowered at the aged fiend. "You're my next opponent, Macidus."

 _"So be it._ " The edges of his smirk perked up as he charged toward at him in a nanosecond. Lotor flinched, bending his arm to cut through his robe and blasting the orb to project himself off the ground. His eyes darted around to look for him and swung around the surge of dark quintessence filling behind his back. Dropping back to the ground, Lotor opened up a wide wave of energy from himself to shield himself from Macidus's blinding toxic attack. Pushing again the alchemic force in the thin yet sharp claws of the arch-druid, Lotor exerts the poisonous alchemic blast through the room of where they were standing. Windows shattered in Macidus's command room, allowing the force of space to properly them on the roof of the jaded-crystallized ship. Lotor grabbed onto the petals of the metal hole melted by the alchemic blast, clinging onto his sword, lifting his head up to a towering dark sage in the fabric of space. He jumped up and allowed his feet to slide across the shaft of the ship as Macidus pulled out a sword forged by his own swirling black magic. "Now we can be equal as the monsters we are, boy." He cackled, zipping randomly around him to slash his toxic blade against Lotor's tarnished one. Flashes, slashes, and several dashes across the shuttle of the ship kept the two alchemists at bay. Lotor could watch the chaos ensuing around him as falling ships of emerald fell through the atmosphere of the planet sacked by the druids. Backup of the Blade of Marmora arrived with the rebel ships to securely rescue the planet's kidnapped inhabitants into their aircraft.

"Give it up! Your fleet is falling, the miners you enslaved of the citizens are fleeing for freedom, and your countenance is fading!" Lotor roared, preparing another blast of blue-white energy from his hand.

"I had enough you!" He barking aloud in laughter as streams of fiery ships fell behind him. " _There is no use for you!_ There is no use for your mother as well! Looking for a wretched _whelp_ such as _you_! Wasting our forces and driving our empire to the stake because of ** _you_**!" He pointed his finger at him.

"Enough of your insults when you should be praying for your life as now!" He combined the energetic orb in his left hand into his sword in his right, sliding through the mask of Macidus.

The pieces of the marbled mask of many golden eyes fell on the surface of the ship like glass, revealing glowing tattoos around his face as he grinned more gravely. "...Ever wondered of _how is it_ that Haggar bore you as her child...?" He lifted his eyes toward Lotor's own.

Lotor directed his sword at him. " _Freeze before you make another move!_ "

"She found disgust upon you as a crying fetus. A mother would never look away from her child made from her and her lover's blood and yet her disgust was enough to think of you as unworthy and tainted by such Altean blood flowing in your veins like your alchemy!"

" _I said shut up_!" He snapped, increasing the force within his Altean broadsword.

"Are you really this _insecure_ ? Such raw anxiety is the reason why you're so unrefined than you so were as a prince." Macidus slowly got up from his knees and dark quintessence filled his aged palms. "That's why you need to be _disciplined_ ." He launched a blast on Lotor's right side, destroyed the entire right side of the space craft. " _Don't toy with me, boy_." He screamed in laughter and swung a punch of energy at Lotor, who dodged quickly and crashed their swords again as another version of Macidus appeared behind Lotor, blasting him with the poisoned magic burning his back. Lotor screamed and rolled down the surface of the falling ship, stabbing his sword through the metal to prevent himself from falling off the edge and turning his head up at Macidus yet again.

" _You have no place to call yourself an alchemist!_ " He directed both of his hands with socket-lighting of violet quintessence toward Lotor, as he tried to fend off the force with the electric blue alchemy persisting in his left hand. The alchemic force between the two energies continued to snarl against each other and continued to drive his sword deeper and deeper to the edge of the ship. Lotor roared as Macidus screamed in the violent storm of the forsaken protoscience.

"You are a monster _just like me_ ! A beast who belongs in _hell_ just like _me_!"

 _"THEN DIE!_ VICTORY OR DEATH!" Lotor screamed as his pupils turn into slits as he ripped his sword out to quickly stab him through the swirling sword into arch-druid's chest, surging the electricity through the blade.

Zipping away his dark magic into the wound made by the former emperor, Macidus staggering back and flinched in pain as the electricity flickered around him. Watching Lotor rise from the edge of the ship with his bare claws, Macidus felt as if a lion was rising up from certain death and to make himself his prey. "...Damn witch..." He clutched onto his wound and about to escape until Kolivan stood in his way.

"That's enough." He readied his own blade at him.

"You're right. But you will be my prey, _foolish Blade_." He grinned smugly.

"Count your prayers then, druid." Kolivan retorted as Macidus jumped off the ship to fade away with the void of space.

Kolivan scowled at where he disappeared to and spoke on his communications glowing around his wrist. "Agent, do you copy? I found Kal and he looks wounded out here."

"Roger that." The static cracked as Kolivan switched it off and walked toward Lotor who collapsed at his knees with his sword in the ground to lift his body up.

"Quickly!" He stretched out his hand to him. "We don't have much time Lotor before this whole ship does."

Lotor looked up as streams of fire carried through the edge of the planet's atmosphere and grabbed on to Kolivan's hand to pull his arm around the commander's back. Lotor's eyes widened. " _Halt!_ "

"What's the matter?"

" _Where's Narti!_ " He slung his arm off and ran to the blasted hole made by alchemy, jumping down to find her laying near the back wall. Kolivan followed after Lotor.

"We don't have much time!"

" _I don't care!_ I'm not leaving her behind!" He lifted her up and pulled her over his wounded back, wincing in pain.

" _You fool!_ You're just as _wounded_ as her!"

"I'm not abandoning _another_ innocent life!" He roared at Kolivan.

Suddenly the entire ship reverberated and the both of them looked up to a familiar rebel ship hovering near the former windows now shattered. A door slid out and hand reached out to belong to that of Matt and N7.

" _Lotor!_ " They yelled his name for him.

Kolivan gazed at the three and stole Narti from Lotor's back on to his own and carried his arm around his neck again. "Come on!" Kolivan carried them to the rebel ship.

 

=============

 

" _Is it too much...?_ " Allura peers at the large mirror, wearing jewelry made of small yellow flowers around her neck. She felt her collarbone to feel the delicate flowers and quickly untie the knot to set it down on the desk. "Maybe this isn't a good time to be wearing flowers..." She frowned, looking at her reflection. No crown was on her head...she squinted. How could she forget about it...? It was probably lying around some random part of the garrison and here she was wearing something golden other than the familiar gold that adorned her forehead.

Who was she now? She felt as if she lost track of herself, never mind the amount of strife and travel it took to reach the paladin's planet. It wasn't her own, to be honest...but she shouldn't think so coldly of her comrades. She made the decision to fight back, obtain what was rightfully their planet even as she lost hers in the crossfire thousands of years ago.

It felt...so distant.

Like a frail fairytale, nothing to uphold, nothing to bring back but just reminisce of the drifting memories of her beloved home with her family and her people.

She bit her lip. How could she become so weak...? Clutching onto her friend who had lingering feelings for her after the horrible revelation of her first love? Was she a hypocrite? Her eyes squinted to fight back the tears of shame for her vulnerability. Wiping it away with the sleeves of unfamiliar clothes of another race than her own, she felt like she was losing her strength.

Stop it. She told herself. _Stop it..._ Allura looked at the little golden flowers. _They..._

Lotor.

She looked down at her knees.

She _still_ remembered.

The times they explored around the ancient ruins of their ancestors in Oriande. The realm that poured the secrets to secreting peace between the Galra and those oppressed and at war with. She clung on to hope and stood up for hope even if it was wore by someone exiled by his own empire. They were even close to ending the war. They entered that future together in the quintessence field. And they ended together as well.

It was all so fast and so cruel. She had so many questions but soon others began to not persist in these urgent queries about why and why and why and why...

She couldn't forget leaving him. It was against her values to leave an innocent life.

And yet, she couldn't stop being in love with him after everything.

 

==============

 

Lotor opened his eyes and realized he was in the medical bay of the rebel base several moons near the Milky Way, based on the nurses whose race belonged to the planets associated with the galaxy. He winced and turned his head to Narti who was found in another room with tubes around her. _Was she on life support...?_ Lotor worried. _Did he overdo it?_ He cursed under his breath and twice on the searing pain on his back. But suddenly he was separated in a completely different room adjacent to her's.

And his mask was removed.

Kolivan walked into the room with Matt and N7, with Kolivan speaking with the nurses to keep Lotor's confidentiality as a patient as they nodded quickly while escorted by other Blades. "What happened? What's happening to Narti?"

Kolivan spoke up. "She's fine and she's under a sedative to keep her under a deep sleep from her to attack the nurses. We don't know of we can do with her considering her condition."

"How's your back?" N7 asked him.

"I should be fine. Galra tend to heal little quicker and persist pain better, _right?_ " He smiled at her.

"I suppose so," She chuckled.

"Will he be able to stand?" Matt asked Kolivan.

"After being knocked out for two days straight, he should be fine. Using alchemy uses a lot of the user's quintessence as a fellow comrade of mine did in our battle long ago against the witch." He briefly explained, perking Lotor's ears to the conversation.

"Battling against the witch? As in Princes--" The memory of being blasted by Voltron in the quintessence field and her tears in the bridge of the castle ship collided with each other in his mind. " _...I..._ I see ." He looked away. Even with the recent events he experienced since his crash in the jungle planet, his memory continue to betray and remind him of the pain from the past at times. But...he looked away from the negative and looked up to the positive.

He pushed the covers from his bed and walked forward to the window. " _May I ..._ try something...?" The memory of Allura placing energy into the symbol of hope they both shared triggered in his mind.

N7 and Matt smiled behind him. "Sure." Matt replied to him. They walked over to the other room and looked at Narti with tubes from her nose and IV drip on her arm and electrode patches around her collar bone and head. Lotor walked forward near her bed and placed two fingers from each of his hands to place them around her temples, sending soft blue electricity through his fingers as he closed his eyes.

Matt and N7 watched her whole body beginning to glow in soft white-blue light and began to hear a voice echoing around her.

_Lotor...Is that you...?_

"I hope I am and you're free from Macidus' grasp." He smiled

_Is that so, huh...How long have I been gone?_

"Never mind that. Wake up for the future, Narti." He opened his eyes.

A breath was inhaled from Narti's body and soon Lotor lifted his right hand off and kept his left on her temple. She shifted in her bed and turned her face at him. She realized she was seeing herself through his own eyes.

_When did you learn alchemy...?_

"...A long time ago. I thought I knew how to do it but for a while I felt unworthy of it." Lotor replied sadly.

_I can sense you're very new to this. It's really unrefined. Not your style._

"Looks like I need to enhance it then." He chuckled with a tear in his eye.

_I see something but I feel something warm and painful from your throat..._

"It's nothing. I'm fine..." He fought back from crying.

_Where's Kova...?_

Lotor paused. "I don't know...I haven't seen him for such a long time." How could he had forgotten about his first comrade...?

_I hope he's doing well..._

"I hope so too."

 

============

 

A pair of two pirate lovers look up in the galaxies above their heads. One stretching out her coral hand to the sky with a larger teal hand embracing her other one as they sat behind the large windows in the command center of their ship. An ancient feline crawled up between them to fall asleep in the friendly Galra's lap as the buff Galra petted the creature's head with her finger. "Hey Narti, we're still looking over your cat for you." Ezor replied bittersweetly.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry I've been MIA in a while since I'm really busy with school at the moment but your comments really fuel me to be a better writer. Many thanks to my beta reader MaddyMay and the Lotor and Lotura fandom as a whole.

**Author's Note:**

> I appreciate those who took the time to read this and thank you all so much. Many thanks to the Lotura fandom and the VLD fandom as well.


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